High-pressure II-III phase transition in solid hydrogen: Insights from state-of-the-art ab initio calculations

Bibliographic Details
Title: High-pressure II-III phase transition in solid hydrogen: Insights from state-of-the-art ab initio calculations
Authors: Maria Hellgren, Damian Contant, Thomas Pitts, Michele Casula
Source: Physical Review Research, Vol 4, Iss 4, p L042009 (2022)
Publisher Information: American Physical Society, 2022.
Publication Year: 2022
Collection: LCC:Physics
Subject Terms: Physics, QC1-999
More Details: The high-pressure II-III phase transition in solid hydrogen is investigated using the random phase approximation and diffusion Monte Carlo. Good agreement between the methods is found confirming that an accurate treatment of exchange and correlation increases the transition pressure by more than 100 GPa with respect to semilocal density functional approximations. Using an optimized hybrid functional, we then reveal a low-symmetry structure for phase II generated by an out-of-plane librational instability of the C2/c phase III structure. This instability weakens the in-plane polarization of C2/c leading to the well-known experimental signatures of the II-III phase transition such as a sharp shift in vibron frequency, infrared activity, and lattice parameter ratio c/a. Finally, we discuss the zero-point vibrational energy that plays an important role in stabilizing phase III at lower pressures.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
ISSN: 2643-1564
Relation: https://doaj.org/toc/2643-1564
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L042009
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/a75fc7cea36d440b857c4f679a424839
Accession Number: edsdoj.75fc7cea36d440b857c4f679a424839
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals
More Details
ISSN:26431564
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L042009
Published in:Physical Review Research
Language:English