Ultrahigh compression of water using intense heavy ion beams: laboratory planetary physics

TLDR

Intense heavy‑ion beams can create high‑energy‑density matter under extreme density and pressure, conditions believed to exist in giant‑planet interiors, and the upcoming FAIR facility will deliver a bunched uranium beam of 5×10¹¹ ions per spill with 50–100 ns bunch length. The LAPLAS experiment aims to achieve low‑entropy compression of materials such as hydrogen or water using a multi‑layered target imploded by an intense heavy‑ion beam. The experiment employs a multi‑layered target that is imploded by the heavy‑ion beam to compress the sample. Simulations predict that FAIR’s heavy‑ion beam can produce planetary‑interior conditions and that LAPLAS experiments can generate both plasma and superionic phases of water.

Abstract

Intense heavy ion beams offer a unique tool for generating samples of high energy density matter with extreme conditions of density and pressure that are believed to exist in the interiors of giant planets. An international accelerator facility named FAIR (Facility for Antiprotons and Ion Research) is being constructed at Darmstadt, which will be completed around the year 2015. It is expected that this accelerator facility will deliver a bunched uranium beam with an intensity of 5×1011 ions per spill with a bunch length of 50–100 ns. An experiment named LAPLAS (Laboratory Planetary Sciences) has been proposed to achieve a low-entropy compression of a sample material like hydrogen or water (which are believed to be abundant in giant planets) that is imploded in a multi-layered target by the ion beam. Detailed numerical simulations have shown that using parameters of the heavy ion beam that will be available at FAIR, one can generate physical conditions that have been predicted to exist in the interior of giant planets. In the present paper, we report simulations of compression of water that show that one can generate a plasma phase as well as a superionic phase of water in the LAPLAS experiments.