Principal Hugoniot, reshock, and temperature measurements in liquid neon at multi-megabar pressures

Constraining material properties at extreme conditions is necessary to understand astrophysical processes and stellar structures. Neon is the fifth most prevalent element in the universe and plays a significant role in energy transfer and internal structures for stars greater than ten solar masses. Additionally, it is a difficult material for density functional theory (DFT) and path-integral Monte Carlo studies due to its large bandgap which persists to extreme conditions. We present measurements of the principal Hugoniot and reshock of liquid neon at pressures up to 5 megabar on the OMEGA laser at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics and the Z machine at Sandia National Laboratories. We determined the temperature along the Hugoniot using the decaying shock technique. For comparison, we conducted DFT-based molecular dynamics simulations on the principal Hugoniot. The experimental results and DFT calculations agree well, validating the theoretical methods in this regime.