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Prediction of Fe-Mg and Fe-Mg-O compounds at exoplanetary interior pressures

ORAL

Abstract

Terrestrial exoplanets are of great interest for being geochemically and geophysically similar to Earth. Their major elements abundances are expected to be similar to Earth’s but their internal pressure and temperature conditions can vary significantly in first order with their masses/sizes. Despite much recent progress in identifying the nature of magnesium silicates up to and beyond ~3 TPa, a most important element, iron, has not been systematically included in these studies so far. Here, we use the adaptive genetic algorithm (AGA) to predict several unreported stable crystalline phases in the binary Fe-Mg and ternary Fe-Mg-O systems up to pressures at 1 TPa and 3 TPa. Analyses of local packing motifs of the low-enthalpy Fe-Mg and Fe-Mg-O phases reveal that both Fe-Mg and Fe-Mg-O systems favor BCC-like motifs at ultra-high pressures regardless of chemical composition. Our results extend the current knowledge of structural information of the Fe-Mg and Fe-Mg-O systems to exoplanetary pressures.

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Presenters

  • Yimei Fang

    Department of Physics, Xiamen Univ, Department of Physics, Xiamen University

Authors

  • Yimei Fang

    Department of Physics, Xiamen Univ, Department of Physics, Xiamen University

  • Yang Sun

    Iowa State University, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, Columbia Univ

  • Renhai Wang

    University of Science and Technology of China, Department of Physics, Department of Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Iowa State University

  • Feng Zheng

    Department of Physics, Xiamen Univ, Department of Physics, Xiamen University

  • Feng Zhang

    Ames Laboratory, Department of Physics, Iowa State University, Iowa State University

  • Shunqing Wu

    Department of Physics, Xiamen Univ, Department of Physics, Xiamen University

  • Cai-Zhuang Wang

    Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Iowa State University, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University, Department of Physics, Iowa State University

  • Renata M Wentzcovitch

    Columbia Univ, Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, Columbia University

  • Kai-Ming Ho

    Ames Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Iowa State University/AmesLab, Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University, Department of Physics, Iowa State University, Iowa State University