AB initio free energy calculations of the solubility of silica in metallic hydrogen and application to giant planet cores

Journal Article · Tue May 20 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/787/1/79· OSTI ID:22356810

González-Cataldo, F. ^[1]; Wilson, Hugh F.

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1. Grupo de NanoMateriales, Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Casilla 653, Santiago (Chile)

By combining density functional molecular dynamics simulations with a thermodynamic integration technique, we determine the free energy of metallic hydrogen and silica, SiO{sub 2}, at megabar pressures and thousands of degrees Kelvin. Our ab initio solubility calculations show that silica dissolves into fluid hydrogen above 5000 K for pressures from 10 and 40 Mbars, which has implications for the evolution of rocky cores in giant gas planets like Jupiter, Saturn, and a substantial fraction of known extrasolar planets. Our findings underline the necessity of considering the erosion and redistribution of core materials in giant planet evolution models, but they also demonstrate that hot metallic hydrogen is a good solvent at megabar pressures, which has implications for high-pressure experiments.

• OSTI ID: 22356810
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 787, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
DENSITY FUNCTIONAL METHOD
EVOLUTION
FLUIDS
FREE ENERGY
HYDROGEN
JUPITER PLANET
MOLECULAR DYNAMICS METHOD
PRESSURE RANGE MEGA PA 10-100
SATELLITES
SATURN PLANET
SILICA
SILICON OXIDES
SIMULATION
SOLUBILITY
SOLVENTS
STABILITY