Recreating planetary cores in the laboratory

Accurate phase diagrams for simple molecular fluids and their constituent elements at temperatures of several thousand kelvin and pressures of several Mbar are important to planetary models of the gas giant. Current high-intensity, laser facilities can produce tens of Mbar pressures in these light fluids. This poster will describe recent shock compressed Hugoniot data for water at pressures higher than 1MBar. To obtain high pressure data very close to planetary isentropes, techniques to generate off Hugoniot need to be developed. Two techniques to achieve such high density states (double shock and precompressed samples) have been tested in recent experiments at the Vulcan laser facility. These techniques and the experimental results will be described.Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under contract No. W-7405-ENG-48.