Reaction ensemble Monte Carlo technique and hypernetted chain approximation study of dense hydrogen

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2004 Jun;69(6 Pt 1):061204. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.69.061204. Epub 2004 Jun 16.

Abstract

In spite of the simple structure of hydrogen, up to now there is no unified theoretical and experimental description of hydrogen at high pressures. Recent results of Z-pinch experiments show a large deviation from those obtained by laser driven ones. Theoretical investigations including ab initio computer simulations show considerable differences at such extreme conditions from each other and from experimental values. We apply the reaction ensemble Monte Carlo technique on one hand and a combination of the hypernetted chain approximation with the mass action law on the other to study the behavior of dense hydrogen at such conditions. The agreement between both methods for the equation of state and for the Hugoniot curve is excellent. Comparison to other methods and experimental results is also performed.