Laser techniques in high-pressure geophysics

Laser techniques in conjunction with the diamond-anvil cell can be used to study high-pressure properties of materials important to a wide range of problems in earth and planetary science. Spontaneous Raman scattering of crystalline and amorphous solids at high pressure demonstrates that dramatic changes in structure and bonding occur on compression. High-pressure Brillouin scattering is sensitive to the pressure variations of single-crystal elastic moduli and acoustic velocities. Laser heating techniques with the diamond-anvil cell can be used to study phase transitions, including melting, under deep-earth conditions. Finally, laser-induced ruby fluorescence has been essential for the development of techniques for generating the maximum pressures now possible with the diamond-anvil cell, and currently provides a calibrated in situ measure of pressure well above 100 gigapascals.     

Cavitation-induced reactions in high-pressure carbon dioxide

The feasibility of ultrasound-induced in situ radical formation in liquid carbon dioxide was demonstrated. The required threshold pressure for cavitation could be exceeded at a relatively low acoustic intensity, as the high vapor pressure of CO2 counteracts the hydrostatic pressure. With the use of a dynamic bubble model, the formation of hot spots upon bubble collapse was predicted. Cavitation-induced radical formation was used for the polymerization of methyl methacrylate in CO2, yielding high-molecular-weight polymers. These results show that sonochemical reactions can be performed in dense-phase fluids, which allows the environmentally benign CO2 to replace conventional organic solvents in many reaction systems.     

Pressure-Tuned Fermi Resonance in Ice VII

Fermi resonance was observed between the OH stretch and the overtone of the OH bending modes of HDO molecules contaminated in phase VII of D(2)O ice over the pressure range from 17 to 30 gigapascals. An anharmonic coupling constant, which is related to the potential energy surface on which hydrogen-bonded protons oscillate, was found to range around 50 wave numbers through the resonant pressure range. Its experimentally obtained magnitude and pressure-insensitive behavior will be useful for theoretical studies of the potential energy surface and hence of the nature of hydrogen bonding in ice.     

Heart activity and high-pressure circulation in cirripedia

Pulsating hemolymph pressures of remarkable magnitude for invertebrates are prevalent in the Pacific gooseneck barnacle. Mean pressures of 250 centimeters of water are common with pulse pressures up to 70 centimeters of water. The pulsations are distinctly rhythmical and the pulsation rate is highly temperature-dependent. The results strongly suggest that in cirripeds hemolymph is circulated by muscular contractions of a functional heart.     

Convection in the antarctic ice sheet leading to a surge of the ice sheet and possibly to a new ice age

The Antarctic surge theory of Pleistocene glaciation is reexamined in the context of thermal convection theory applied to the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet surges when a water layer at the base of the ice sheet reaches the edge of the ice sheet over broad fronts and has a thickness sufficient to drown the projections from the bed that most strongly hinder basal ice flow. Frictional heat from convection flow promotes basal melting, and, as the ice sheet grows to the continental shelf of Antarctica, a surge of the ice sheet appears likely.     

Climatic ice core records from the tropical quelccaya ice cap

The Quelccaya Ice Cap in the easternmost glaciated mountain chain of the Peruvian Andes has been studied in four recentfield seasons. Ice cores to a depth of 15 meters have been retrieved at the summit dome (elevation, 5650 meters) and two other locations and used for microparticle, isotope, and beta radioactivity measurements. A concurrent study of the present climate and the heat and mass budgets is being made to permit a paleoclimatic interpretation of deep core records. The results indicate the need for a revision of the isotope "thermometry" for application in the tropics. However, the seasonality of the beta radioactivity, microparticle content, and isotope ratios offers the prospect of a mass balance chronology. This is important in that precipitation is believed to be a more indicative paleoclimatic parameter than temperature in the tropics.     

Nickel orthouronate: high-pressure synthesis

The compound NiUO(4) has been synthesized at high pressure and temperature. No material of this composition is known to be synthesized at ambient pressure. The NiUO(4) structure is of the orthorhombic body centered MgUO(4) type; cell dimensions: a(1), 6.415 A; a(2) 6.435 A; and a(3), 6.835 A.     

Mars ice caps

Minimum atmospheric temperatures required to prevent CO(2) condensatio in the Mars polar caps are higher than those obtained in a computer experiment to simulate the general circulation of the Mars atmosphere. This observation supports the view that the polar caps are predominantly solid CO(2). However, thin clouds of H(2)0 ice could substantially reduce the surface condensation rate.     

Superdense water ice

A new allotropic form of water ice with a density of 2.32 +/- 0.15 grams per cubic centimeter has been observed at very low pressures and for temperatures lower than 100 degrees K. It is most likely amorphous.     

A high-pressure structure in curium linked to magnetism

Curium lies at the center of the actinide series and has a half-filled shell with seven 5f electrons spatially residing inside its radon core. As a function of pressure, curium exhibits five different crystallographic phases up to 100 gigapascals, of which all but one are also found in the preceding element, americium. We describe here a structure in curium, Cm III, with monoclinic symmetry, space group C2/c, found at intermediate pressures (between 37 and 56 gigapascals). Ab initio electronic structure calculations agree with the observed sequence of structures and establish that it is the spin polarization of curium's 5f electrons that stabilizes Cm III. The results reveal that curium is one of a few elements that has a lattice structure stabilized by magnetism.     

Acrylonitrile polymerization in a miniaturized high-pressure optical cell

A miniaturized high-pressure optical cell has been used to investigate the feasibility of carrying out high-pressure polymerization, wherein the process can be observed both spectroscopically and optically while the polymerization process is occurring. The method has been illustrated by a novel polymerization of acrylonitrile.     

Grain size-sensitive creep in ice II

Rheological experiments on fine-grained water ice II at low strain rates reveal a creep mechanism that dominates at conditions of low stress. Using cryogenic scanning electron microscopy, we observed that a change in stress exponent from 5 to 2.5 correlates strongly with a decrease in grain size from about 40 to 6 micrometers. The grain size-sensitive creep of ice II demonstrated here plausibly dominates plastic strain at the low-stress conditions in the interior of medium- to large-sized icy moons of the outer solar system.     

Emerging chirality in artificial spin ice

Artificial spin ice, made up of planar nanostructured arrays of simple ferromagnetic bars, is a playground for rich physics associated with the spin alignment of the bars and spin texture associated with the magnetic frustration at the bar vertices. The phase diagram is exotic, showing magnetic monopole-like defects and liquid and solid phases of spins arranged in loop states with predicted chiral order. We show that magnetotransport measurements in connected honeycomb structures yield the onset of an anomalous Hall signal at 50 kelvin. The temperature scale can be attributed to the long-range dipolar ice phase. The topological Hall signal arises because chiral loops form at the sample edges, indicating a generic route to exotic states via nanoarray edge structure.