Multiple shock reverberation compression of dense Ne up to the warm dense regime: Evaluating the theoretical models

Multiple shock reverberation compression experiments are designed and performed to determine the equation of state of neon ranging from the initial dense gas up to the warm dense regime where the pressure is from about 40 MPa to 120 GPa and the temperature is from about 297 K up to above 20 000 K. The wide region experimental data are used to evaluate the available theoretical models. It is found that, for neon below 1.1 g^{/cm 3} , within the framework of density functional theory molecular dynamics, a van der Waals correction is meaningful. Under high pressure and temperature, results from the self-consistent fluid variational theory model are sensitive to the potential parameter and could give successful predictions in the whole experimental regime if a set of proper parameters is employed. The new observations on neon under megabar (1 Mbar =10¹¹Pa ) pressure and eV temperature (1 eV ≈10⁴K ) enrich the understanding on properties of warm dense matter and have potential applications in revealing the formation and evolution of gaseous giants or mega-Earths.