The phase diagram of Mg is investigated in a theoretical framework which proved rather successful for other simple metals. The calculated fusion curve agrees rather well with low and high-pressure experimental data. The existence of a h c p → b c c transition under pressure and incipient melting on the Hugoniot about 0.5 Mbar are also predicted.
Data on the high-pressure melting temperatures of metals is of great interest in several fields of physics including geophysics. Measuring melt curves is difficult but can be performed in static experiments (with laser-heated diamond-anvil cells for instance) or dynamically (i.e., using shock experiments). However, at the present time, both a Currently at Los Alamos National Laboratory 2 experimental and theoretical results for the melt curve of lead are at too much variance to be considered definitive. As a result, we decided to perform a series of shock experiments designed to provide a measurement of the melt curve of lead up to about 50 GPa in pressure. At the same time, we developed and fielded a new reflectivity diagnostic, using it to make measurements on tin. The results show that the melt curve of lead is somewhat higher than the one previously obtained with static compression and heating techniques.
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