Equation of State and Electronic Transport Properties of Dense Liquid Hydrogen
Abstract
We present extensive first-principles calculations of the equation of state and electronic transport properties of hydrogen across a wide density (0.2 < ρ < 70 g/cm^3 ) and temperature (10^3 < T < 10^6 K) regime, encompassing conditions relevant to giant planet interiors, stellar envelopes, and inertial confinement fusion plasmas. Simulations employed the strongly constrained appropriate normed exchange-correlation functional at low temperatures to capture bonding effects, with systematic comparison to the Perdew-Burke-Ernzerhof exchange-correlation functional. The equation of state data recover the ideal-gas and fully ionized plasma limits. Analysis of internal energies and pair distribution functions reveals the crossover between correlated liquids and degeneracy-dominated plasmas. Electronic transport coefficients were obtained via the Kubo-Greenwood formalism. The electrical conductivity exhibits an inversion region near ρ ∼ 1-10 g/cm^3 , where degeneracy and coupling parameters are of order unity, marking the transition from molecular to metallic hydrogen. The thermal conductivity rises monotonically with increasing density and temperature, bridging between the Wiedemann-Franz behavior in the degenerate regime and the Spitzer scaling in the classical limit. The Seebeck coefficient remains negative and converges to the classical asymptote at high T and low rho. Comparisons with analytical models, including Chabrier-Potekhin [G. Chabrier and A. Y. Potekhin, Phys. Rev. E 58, 4941 (1998)] and Kleinschmidt-Redmer [U. Kleinschmidt and R. Redmer, Matter Radiat. Extremes 10, 047602 (2025)], show good agreement. Our data set provides a high-accuracy benchmark for warm dense hydrogen and a reliable reference for applications such as planetary modeling, stellar structure calculations, and ICF design.
Fields of Study & Subjects
High-pressure geophysics and materials
Advanced Chemical Physics Studies
Thermodynamic and Structural Properties of Metals and Alloys
Publication details
- Journal / source
- AIP Publishing
- Publication date
- 1 January 2026
- Language
- EN