Equation Of State Of Titan's Interior: A Thermo-chemical Assessment

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We use a chemical equilibrium approach to model the state of nitrogen in the interior of Titan. The initial composition of Titan's interior is alternately taken as either pure ammonia and water or a comet-like solar composition with hydrogen depleted by a factor 1000. The chemical equilibrium model includes an exponential exp-6 equation of state for fluids and a Murnaghan form for solids, the parameters for which are fitted to experimental shock Hugoniot data, isotropic compression and sound speed data from pressures of a few hundred kPa to that of a few hundred GPa.. The models allows for a variety of mixtures. For pressures up to 2 GPa; if the carbon/nitrogen ratio is less than unity then an ammonia-water ocean is stable in the interior of Titan. If the C/N ratio in the interior exceeds unity then ammonia is not stable and the stable form of nitrogen is N2. For pressures above 2 GPa, such as expected at the core of Titan, ammonia is stable due to the depletion of methane and the associated formation of graphite. While not explicitly included in our model, N2 and water ice below the surface would be expected to form clathrate resulting in a clathrate and water-ice mixture. The dissociation pressure of N2 clathrate of 16 MPa (at 273 K) could power gas-driven cryovolcanism on Titan and possibly other large icy worlds. This would be consistent with the evidence for cryovolcanism, and with the absence of ammonia while providing a source of gases (CH4 and N2) to the atmosphere. We find that the thermodynamically stable state of the solid organic material (tholin) on Titan is graphite and H2 or, if graphite is kinetically suppressed, then tholin decomposes to benzene.

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