Quantum Suppression of the Rayleigh Instability in Nanowires
  A linear stability analysis of metallic nanowires is performed in the free-electron model using quantum chaos techniques. It is found that the classical instability of a long wire under surface tension can be completely suppressed by electronic shell effects, leading to stable cylindrical configurations whose electrical conductance is a magic number 1, 3, 5, 6,... times the quantum of conductance. Our results are quantitatively consistent with recent experiments with alkali metal nanowires. 
F. Kassubek, C. A. Stafford, Hermann Grabert, and Raymond E. Goldstein