Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2021
Volume 66, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 15–19, 2021; Virtual; Time Zone: Central Daylight Time, USA
Session H71: Poster Session I (2:00pm - 4:00pm)
2:00 PM,
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Abstract: H71.00242 : Metallization of dense fluid helium from ab initio simulations
Presenter:
Martin Preising
(University of Rostock)
Authors:
Martin Preising
(University of Rostock)
Ronald A. Redmer
(University of Rostock)
We study the insulator-to-metal transition at densities between 1 and 22 g/ccm and temperatures between 10 000 and 50 000 K. We calculate the equation of state, the band gap, the DC conductivity, the reflectivity, and the ionization degree for which a novel method has been proposed recently [see M. Bethkenhagen et al., Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 023260 (2020)].
We find no indication of a first-order phase transition in any of the properties studied here and conclude that the metallization of fluid helium is continuous. For instance, we do not observe jumps in the DC conductivity and/or the reflectivity when the band gap closes. However, the ionization degree increases from below 10% at the lowest to over 99% at the highest densities which reflects the continuous insulator-to-metal transition. The increase is almost exclusively driven by pressure ionization and shows only a weak temperature dependence.
We discuss the high-pressure phase diagram of helium and the implications of our results on the structure of astrophysical objects like gas giant planets and brown dwarfs.
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