Temperature measurements on cerium shocked to stress states that span the melt boundary

The ability to measure temperature in shock wave experiments has been a long-standing scientific challenge. Such experiments are often complicated by the short time scales and the presence of non-thermal or external light sources that pollute measured radiances when optical pyrometry methods are used. In this presentation, we describe experimental efforts to apply an optical pyrometry method to obtain temperatures for cerium shocked to stresses that span the melt boundary. Radiance data were used to determine the Huguoniot curves for the solid and liquid by measuring the longitudinal stress and temperature simultaneously in the shocked state. These data were further used to estimate the temperature for incipient and complete melting, and to further constrain our multiphase EOS that describes the shock response of cerium at high pressures. These experimental methods and challenges, experimental results, and implications for future work will be discussed.