Electrons behave differently in extreme states of matter than previously assumed. This is shown by a new study conducted by researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the European XFEL, and other partners. The findings could help us better understand the interiors of planets and advance research on nuclear fusion.
Aluminum Under Extreme Conditions
At the European XFEL near Hamburg, the world’s largest X-ray laser research facility, the researchers compressed a thin aluminum foil to 500,000 times normal atmospheric pressure and heated it to nearly 7,000 degrees Celsius. This created what is known as “hot dense matter,” a state of matter found inside large planets or in nuclear fusion experiments.
Hot dense matter is difficult to study. Researchers therefore use X-ray experiments and computational models to describe the behavior of electrons. Among other things, these determine how a material conducts heat and electricity or reacts to radiation.
However, the newly published study shows that many models used to date do not accurately capture important properties of the electrons. The measured values deviated from the predictions by up to 25 percent.
