High-pressure chemistry of hydrocarbons relevant to planetary interiors and inertial confinement fusion

Diamond formation in polystyrene (C8H8)n, which is laser-compressed and heated to conditions around 150 GPa and 5000 K, has recently been demonstrated in the laboratory [Kraus et al., Nat. Astron. 1, 606–611 (2017)]. Here, we show an extended analysis and comparison to first-principles simulations of the acquired data and their implications for planetary physics and inertial confinement fusion. Moreover, we discuss the advanced diagnostic capabilities of adding high-quality small angle X-ray scattering and spectrally resolved X-ray scattering to the platform, which shows great prospects of precisely studying the kinetics of chemical reactions in dense plasma environments at pressures exceeding 100 GPa

Platform for probing radiation transport properties of hydrogen at conditions found in the deep interiors of red dwarfs

We describe an experimental concept at the National Ignition Facility for specifically tailored spherical implosions to compress hydrogen to extreme densities (up to [Formula: see text] solid density, electron number density [Formula: see text]) at moderate temperatures ([Formula: see text]), i.e., to conditions, which are relevant to the interiors of red dwarf stars. The dense plasma will be probed by laser-generated x-ray radiation of different photon energy to determine the plasma opacity due to collisional (free–free) absorption and Thomson scattering. The obtained results will benchmark radiation transport models, which in the case for free–free absorption show strong deviations at conditions relevant to red dwarfs. This very first experimental test of free–free opacity models at these extreme states will help to constrain where inside those celestial objects energy transport is dominated by radiation or convection. Moreover, our study will inform models for other important processes in dense plasmas, which are based on electron–ion collisions, e.g., stopping of swift ions or electron–ion temperature relaxation

Evidence for Crystalline Structure in Dynamically-Compressed Polyethylene up to 200 GPa

Abstract We investigated the high-pressure behavior of polyethylene (CH2) by probing dynamically-compressed samples with X-ray diffraction. At pressures up to 200 GPa, comparable to those present inside icy giant planets (Uranus, Neptune), shock-compressed polyethylene retains a polymer crystal structure, from which we infer the presence of significant covalent bonding. The A2/m structure which we observe has previously been seen at significantly lower pressures, and the equation of state measured agrees with our findings. This result appears to contrast with recent data from shock-compressed polystyrene (CH) at higher temperatures, which demonstrated demixing and recrystallization into a diamond lattice, implying the breaking of the original chemical bonds. As such chemical processes have significant implications for the structure and energy transfer within ice giants, our results highlight the need for a deeper understanding of the chemistry of high pressure hydrocarbons, and the importance of better constraining planetary temperature profiles

Dataset: Measuring the structure and equation of state of polyethylene terephthalate at megabar pressures

This repository contains raw-data related to our publication "Measuring the structure and equation of state of polyethylene terephthalate at megabar pressures". The XRD data in the "LCLS" folder is accompanied with a "calibration.poni" file that provides information about the experiment's geometry and can be used in pyFAI (GitHub page) or Dioptas (GitHub page) to integrate the two-dimensional data azimuthally. Integrated XRD data after background-subtraction and filter-corrections is presented in Fig. 2 and 3 of the manuscript while 2D data of run 215 is used in Fig. 1. The "shotlist.csv" file contains information about the relative X-ray to drive-laser timing, shot-type and X-ray energy for the individual events. VISAR, SOP and reflectivity measurements can be found in the "LULI" directory. 2ω-VISAR and SOP datasets of shot 08 are displayed as inserts in Fig. 5 (the first after performing a ghost-fringe subtraction). "shotlist.csv" provides additional parameters. The DFTMD folder contains the results of our density functional theory molecular dynamics simulation. In the "XRD" subdirectory, "wrofk_mylar_chomd*.dat" files can be found in which the quantities to calculate the lineouts in Fig. 3 and 4 are saved for given temperatures, pressures and densities. The header of those files is given in "header.txt" and additional information about the conditions and settings for individual calculations can be obtained from "param_mylar_md.txt". The dataset for the Hugoniot curve from our DFT-MD equation-of-state (which is plotted in Fig. 5) is provided in the "Hugoniot" sub-folder