ERC Planet DivePlanetary diversity: the experimental terapascal perspective

The ERC Planet Dive (Guillaume Fiquet PI, Marion Harmand and Guillaume Morard co-PI) aims at providing experimental references for phase diagrams, equations of state and melting properties of planetary materials up to the TeraPascal pressure range (1 TPa = 1012 Pa = 10 Mbar).

The group will acquire original experimental data by the combined use of well-calibrated static experiments (laser-heated diamond-anvil cells) and laser- compression experiments coupled with synchrotron or XFEL X-ray sources.

This will allow to establish benchmarking values for important planetary materials such as silicates, oxides, carbides, and iron alloys. Key questions concerning the internal structures of planets with 1-5 Earth masses will thus be adressed.

A main philosophy and originality of the project is to spend a lot of efforts on the quality and characterization of the starting materials : composite multilayer targets in dynamic experiments and complex integrated assemblages for loading diamond-anvil cells.