High-Pressure Equations of State of Hydrogen and Helium and Implications for Jupiter and Saturn

Details High-Pressure Equations of State of Hydrogen and Helium and Implications for Jupiter and Saturn High-Pressure Equations of State of Hydrogen and Helium and Implications for Jupiter and Saturn

Apr 1997

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1997aps..apr..i503s&link_type=abstract

American Physical Society, APS/AAPT Joint Meeting, April 18-21, 1997, abstract #I5.03

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The giant planets Jupiter and Saturn are composed of ~ 70% hydrogen and ~ 26% helium, with all other elements contributing only a few percent of the total mass. Current models for the interior of Jupiter indicate that at the center, the pressure reaches ~ 70 Mbar and the temperature is ~ 17 000 K. Under these conditions, hydrogen is a strongly coupled plasma with partially degenerate electrons, known as ``metallic hydrogen.'' Near the surface, however, hydrogen is in the form of fluid H_2. At intermediate pressures of 1 to 3 Mbar, hydrogen undergoes pressure ionization and it is yet unclear whether this transition is continuous or a first order phase transition. This is an important issue since our understanding of the interior structure and of the evolution of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the interpretation of the surface abundances observed by the Galileo atmospheric entry probe depend strongly on the assumed equation of state of H and He mixtures in the 0.4 to 10 Mbar range. Recent theoretical simulations and experimental results are providing exciting new insights into the equation of state of hydrogen under the relevant conditions and provide the motivation to return to several long-standing problems about Jupiter and Saturn.

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