4. A Case Study: Hydrogen 39 4 A Case Study: Hydrogen The most abundant planetary ingredient is hydrogen. In this chapter we discuss the behavior of this material. However, we will also use this case study as an opportunity to introduce a number of basic ideas involving phase transitions. In reality, even this simplest of elements turns out to be remarkably complicated and the approach described here is inadequate. However, it still serves as a valuable introduction to the general ideas. 4.1 What is the Zero Pressure Ground State of Hydrogen? In the last chapter, we calculated the energy for a uniform ensemble of hydrogen as protons and electrons. The zero-pressure energy for this state (when computed as carefully as possible; i.e., including correlation and band structure) is about -1.03 or -1.04 Rydbergs per hydrogen (or equivalently, per electron), so it is bound relative to hydrogen atoms (which lie at exactly –1.00 Rydberg). It is not, however, lower than the energy per proton of molecular hydrogen gas, liquid, or solid, where the energy is about -1.15 Ryd. (It takes about 4 eV, or 0.3 Ryd, to bust up a hydrogen molecule.) So hydrogen prefers to form molecules at zero pressure. (This is not true of other first column elements in the periodic table, i.e., Li, Na, K...) 4.2 The Molecular-Metallic Transition in Hydrogen; A Traditional View We have seen that hydrogen could exist in a metallic state (free-electron-like state) analogous to alkali metals. Recall that hydrogen is in column one of the periodic table. But we know from everyday experience that hydrogen normally exists as diatoms (molecules with bound electrons). At sufficiently high pressures, the metal must win. The reason is that when the molecules are as close to each other as the distance between the protons, then there is no longer benefit from strongly correlating the electrons with the protons2. Indeed, the Pauli exclusion effect together with Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle will lead to a very high penalty for clumping the electrons... they will want to be as uniformly distributed as possible. So the energies of the two states (molecular and metallic) must cross. The energy per proton of the molecular state can be approximated as: (4.1) and obviously depends crucially on φ, the potential of interaction between the hydrogen molecules. (Since this is the energy per proton, we must divide the zero point energy of a molecule by one half and the other factor of one half comes from the double counting that 2 This argument is not as straightforward as it seems and might even be wrong in some cases. The problem is that the approach to uniformity in the electron gas does not automatically imply that the material is a metal. The latter requires availability of nearby empty states for the electrons. We can nonetheless compare the energy of the assumed molecular state and the theoretically predicted metallic state and find when the latter is preferred. That’s what we are doing here. E = −1.15 +12[Ezero point+12φ(ri−rji≠ j∑)]4. A Case Study: Hydrogen 40 arises from the summing of intermolecular interactions.) In reality, this use of a pair potential is only an approximation to a many body problem. An equivalent way of saying this is that it is not really a pair potential (it depends on the presence of other molecules) and it is not strictly a function of spacing. This is the major problem with doing the calculation, and is a reason why we still do not know the transition pressure. In order to understand where this transition pressure occurs, we must first review some elementary thermodynamics. At any temperature and specified pressure, we want to find the state with lowest Gibbs energy, where Gibbs energy is defined by We can easily understand why this must be true by considering a system at the transition pressure (here we focus on the zero temperature case, but a similar argument can be made for finite temperature). If we are at the transition pressure and change a small amount from phase 1 (volume V1) to phase 2 (volume V2), then the energy change is E2 -E1 and the work done by the rest of the material on the part that has changed phase is P(V1- V2). The net energy cost must be zero in equilibrium, and thus (4.1) But this is algebraically equivalent to saying that the phases have equal Gibbs energies (at zero T) at the transition pressure. Therefore, the way to find a phase transition is to look for a crossing of the two Gibbs energy curves as a function of pressure (see figure below). Notice that the high pressure stable phase must have lower dG/dP=specific volume (i.e., higher density). Figure 4.1 Graphically, this can also be done as a Maxwell construction. The Maxwell construction involves finding a common tangent to the two curves for internal energy as a function of specific volume. (At finite temperature, it is done with the Helmholtz free energies.) Below, we see it sketched for hydrogen, together with a sketch of what it looks like in the pressure-volume plane. Note that if you only have P-V data or theory for each phase, then you don’t have enough information to decide on the location of the phase boundary! The reason is that the phase transition is determined by the energy, and a P-V diagram involves only the derivative of energy, not energy itself—phase changes can be observed, G = E + PV − TSE2− E1= P(V1− V2)4. A Case Study: Hydrogen 41 however, as sudden drops in volume during a compression experiment, as long as the phase transition is not kinetically inhibited. Figure 4.2 Below, we see the “actual data” with the metallic hydrogen equation of state superimposed. These constructions are often the best way of understanding whether there should be a phase transition. However, the presence of an offset in two P-V curves does not imply that there must be a phase transition—it might instead simply indicate an inadequate theory. At present, the pressures that appear to be needed for this transition are not achievable by experiments, except at very high temperature. It is possible that this “monatomic” metallic state appears at a pressure of maybe 4 to 6 Megabars (still reached at 70% of the radius of Jupiter), but this remains uncertain and might not even be that important, as explained below.4. A Case Study: Hydrogen 42 Figure 4.3 4.3 What is Really Happening in Hydrogen? This is still not fully understood, but it is now clear that the simple