P-V-T equation of state of epsilon iron and its densities at core conditions.pdf

P-V-T equation of state of epsilon iron and its densities at core conditions József Garai Department of Earth Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199, USA Abstract The author’s new p-V-T Equation of State is tested against the available experiments of epsilon iron. The root-mean-square-deviations (RMSD) of the molar volume, pressure, and temperature are 0.021 cm3, 2.0 GPa and 144.9 K respectively. Separating the experiments into 200 K ranges the new EoS was compared to the most widely used finite strain, interatomic potential, and empirical isothermal EoSs such as the Burch- Murnaghan, the Vinet, and the Roy-Roy respectively. Correlation coefficients, RMSDs of the residuals and Akaike Information Criteria were used for evaluating the fittings. Based on these fitting parameters the new p-V-T EoS is equal or better than the conventional isothermal EoSs. The newly defined parameters were used to calculate the density of the inner core. The calculated densities are significantly lower than the current consensus indicating that it might be too early excluding the possibility of a pure iron-nickel core with no light elements. Keywords: Equation of state; epsilon iron; inner core densities. - 2 - 1. Introduction It has been suggested that the volume is not a fundamental variable but rather the sum of the initial (zero pressure-temperature) [ ]oV , thermal [ ]thoV and elastic [ ]eloV volumes (Garai, 2007). th o el oo VVVV ++= . (1) Subscript o is used to indicate that these fundamental volume parts were determined by using the newly defined volume coefficient of thermal expansion oα and bulk modulus oB . The thermodynamic equations describing these fundamental volume parts are m oo nVV = (2) and T V V 1 th 0p o ? ? ≡α = , (3) and el0To V pVB ? ? ?≡ = , (4) where n is the number of moles, moV is the molar volume of the substance at zero pressure and temperature, T is the temperature, and p is the pressure.