Recommended Citation
January 1, 2019.
Abstract
Big discoveries can come from small element, and hydrogen is the simplest element in the universe, but its property has been intensely studied in recent years. Hydrogen has a notably complex phase diagram, and its application is important to many scientific fields, such as fundamental physics, inertial confinement fusion, planetary sciences, etc. While sophisticated static observations have probed its structure at extremely high pressures, the higher-temperature studies applying dynamic compression is confined to optical measurement methods. In this project over the summer, I will present spectrally resolved x-ray scattering assessment from plasmons in dynamic compressed deuterium. Collaborating Compton scattering and velocity interferometry, we can measure shock pressure and mass density, which allowed us to extract ionization state as a function of compression. The onset of ionization occurs close in pressure to where density functional theory-molecular dynamics (DFT-MD) simulation displays molecular dissociation, proposing hydrogen progress from a molecular, insulating fluid to a conducting state despite going through an intermediate atomic phase.
Disciplines
Elementary Particles and Fields and String Theory
Mentor
Siegfried Glenzer
Lab site
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC)
Funding Acknowledgement
This material is based upon the work of multiple authors from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California Los Angeles, Sandia National Laboratories, and Institut fur Physik, Rostock University, Germany. The STAR program is administered by the Cal Poly Center for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Education (CESaME) on behalf of the California State University
URL: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/star/572