Abstract
We demonstrate a significantly simplified experimental approach for investigating liquid metallic hydrogen, which is crucial to understand the internal structure and evolution of giant planets. Plastic samples were shockcompressed and then probed by short pulses of X-rays generated by free electron lasers. By comparison with ab initio simulations, we provide indirect evidence for the creation of elemental hydrogen in shock-compressed plastics at ∼150GPa and ∼5,000K and thus in a regime where hydrogen is predicted to be metallic. Being the most common form of condensed matter in our solar system, and ostensibly the simplest of all elements, hydrogen is the model case for many theoretical studies and we provide a new possibility to benchmark models for conditions with extreme pressures and temperatures. Moreover, this approach will also allow to probe the chemical behavior of metallic hydrogen in mixture with other elements, which, besides its importance for planetary physics, may open up promising pathways for the synthesis of new materials.
Original language | English |
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Article number | L022023 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Physical Review Research |
Volume | 5 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 03 May 2023 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was performed at the Matter at Extreme Conditions (MEC) instrument of LCLS, supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Fusion Energy Science under Contract No. SF00515. D.K., A.M.S., and R.W.F. acknowledge support by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, Award No. DE-AC02-05CH11231, and National Nuclear Security Administration, Award No. DE-NA0003842. The XFEL experiments on SACLA were performed using BL3 at the EH5 with the approval of the Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute (JASRI) (Proposal No. 2019A8070). D.K., N.J.H., J.L., A.K.S., and K.V. were supported by the Helmholtz Association under VH-NG-1141. SLAC HED is supported by DOE Office of Science, Fusion Energy Science under FWP 100182. S.F. was supported by German Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung Project No. 05P15RDFA1. The work of A.P., S.F., and T.D. was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Physics and Astronomy