Earth's lowermost mantle displays complex geological phenomena that likely result from its heterogeneous physical interaction with the core. Geophysical models of core-mantle interaction rely on the thermal and electrical conductivities of appropriate geomaterials which, however, have never been probed at representative pressure and temperature (P-T) conditions. Here we report on the opacity of single crystalline bridgmanite and ferropericlase and link it to their radiative and electrical conductivities. Our results show that light absorption in the visible spectral range is enhanced upon heating in both minerals but the rate of change in opacity with temperature is a factor of six higher in ferropericlase. As a result, bridgmanite in the lowermost mantle is moderately transparent while ferropericlase is highly opaque. Our measurements support previous indirect estimates of low (< 1 W/m/K) and largely temperature-independent radiative conductivity in the lowermost mantle. This implies that the radiative mechanism has not contributed significantly to cooling the Earth's core throughout the geologic time. Opaque ferropericlase is electrically conducting and mediates strong core-mantle electromagnetic coupling, explaining the intradecadal oscillations in the length of day, low secular geomagnetic variations in Central Pacific, and the preferred paths of geomagnetic pole reversals. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Located in the Lower Centaurus Crux group, HD 106906 is a young, binary stellar system. This system is unique among discovered systems in that it contains an asymmetrical debris disk, as well as an 11 M (Jup) planet companion, at a separation of similar to 735 au. Only a handful of other systems are known to contain both a disk and a directly imaged planet, where HD 106906 is the only one in which the planet has apparently been scattered. The debris disk is nearly edge-on and extends to roughly >500 au, where previous studies with the Hubble Space Telescope have shown the outer regions to have high asymmetry. To better understand the structure and composition of the disk, we have performed a deep polarimetric study of HD 106906's asymmetrical debris disk using newly obtained H-, J-, and K1-band polarimetric data from the Gemini Planet Imager. An empirical analysis of our data supports a disk that is asymmetrical in surface brightness and structure, where fitting an inclined ring model to the disk spine suggests that the disk may be highly eccentric (e greater than or similar to 0.16). A comparison of the disk flux with the stellar flux in each band suggests a blue color that also does not significantly vary across the disk. We discuss these results in terms of possible sources of asymmetry, where we find that dynamical interaction with the planet companion, HD 106906b, is a likely candidate.

We synthesized two C-S-H compounds from a mixture of carbon and sulfur in hydrogen-C : (H2S)(2)H-2 and from sulfur in mixed methane-hydrogen fluids-(CH4)(x)(H2S)((2-x))H-2 at 4 GPa. X-ray synchrotron single-crystal diffraction and Raman spectroscopy have been applied to these samples up to 58 and 143 GPa, respectively. Both samples show a similar Al-2 Cu-type I4/mcm basic symmetry, while the hydrogen subsystem evolves with pressure via variously ordered molecular and extended modifications. The methane-bearing sample lowers symmetry to an orthorhombic Pnma structure after laser heating to 1400 K at 143 GPa. The results suggest that C-S-H compounds are structurally different from a common Im-3m H3S.

We present far- and near-ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy of the similar to 23 Myr edge-on debris disk surrounding the A0V star eta Telescopii, obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. We detect absorption lines from C i, C ii, O i, Mg ii, Al ii, Si ii, S ii, Mn ii, Fe ii, and marginally N i. The lines show two clear absorption components at -22.7 +/- 0.5 km s(-1) and -17.8 +/- 0.7 km s(-1), which we attribute to circumstellar (CS) and interstellar gas, respectively. CO absorption is not detected, and we find no evidence for star-grazing exocomets. The CS absorption components are blueshifted by -16.9 +/- 2.6 km s(-1) in the star's reference frame, indicating that they are outflowing in a radiatively driven disk wind. We find that the C/Fe ratio in the eta Tel CS gas is significantly higher than the solar ratio, as is the case in the beta Pic and 49 Cet debris disks. Unlike those disks, however, the measured C/O ratio in the eta Tel CS gas is consistent with the solar value. Our analysis shows that because eta Tel is an earlier type star than beta Pic and 49 Cet, with more substantial radiation pressure at the dominant C ii transitions, this species cannot bind the CS gas disk to the star as it does for beta Pic and 49 Cet, resulting in the disk wind.

Earth's core is composed of iron (Fe) alloyed with light elements, e.g., silicon (Si). Its thermal conductivity critically affects Earth's thermal structure, evolution, and dynamics, as it controls the magnitude of thermal and compositional sources required to sustain a geodynamo over Earth's history. Here we directly measured thermal conductivities of solid Fe and Fe-Si alloys up to 144GPa and 3300K. 15 at% Si alloyed in Fe substantially reduces its conductivity by about 2 folds at 132GPa and 3000K. An outer core with 15 at% Si would have a conductivity of about 20Wm(-1) K-1, lower than pure Fe at similar pressure-temperature conditions. This suggests a lower minimum heat flow, around 3 TW, across the core-mantle boundary than previously expected, and thus less thermal energy needed to operate the geodynamo. Our results provide key constraints on inner core age that could be older than two billion-years. Thermal conductivity of Earth's core affects Earth's thermal structure, evolution and dynamics. Based on thermal conductivity measurements of iron-silicon alloys at high pressure and temperature conditions, the authors here propose Earth's inner core could be older than previously expected.

The synthesis of polynitrogen compounds is of great importance due to their potential as high-energy-density materials (HEDM), but because of the intrinsic instability of these compounds, their synthesis and stabilization is a fundamental challenge. Polymeric nitrogen units which may be stabilized in compounds with metals at high pressure are now restricted to non-branched chains with an average N-N bond order of 1.25, limiting their HEDM performances. Herein, we demonstrate the synthesis of a novel polynitrogen compound TaN5 via a direct reaction between tantalum and nitrogen in a diamond anvil cell at circa 100 GPa. TaN5 is the first example of a material containing branched all-single-bonded nitrogen chains [N-5(5-)](infinity). Apart from that we discover two novel Ta-N compounds: TaN4 with finite N-4(4-) chains and the incommensurately modulated compound TaN2-x, which is recoverable at ambient conditions.

We present a detailed characterization of the extremely dusty main-sequence star TYC 8830 410 1. This system hosts inner planetary system dust (T (dust) approximate to 300 K) with a fractional infrared luminosity of similar to 1%. Mid-infrared spectroscopy reveals a strong, mildly crystalline solid-state emission feature. TYC 8830 410 1 (spectral type G9 V) has a 49.5 '' separation M4-type companion comoving and co-distant with it, and we estimate a system age of similar to 600 Myr. TYC 8830 410 1 also experiences "dipper"-like dimming events as detected by the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and characterized in more detail with the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope. These recurring eclipses suggest at least one roughly star-sized cloud of dust orbits the star in addition to assorted smaller dust structures. The extreme properties of the material orbiting TYC 8830 410 1 point to dramatic dust-production mechanisms that likely included something similar to the giant impact event thought to have formed the Earth-Moon system, although hundreds of millions of years after such processes are thought to have concluded in the solar system. TYC 8830 410 1 holds promise to deliver significant advances in our understanding of the origin, structure, and evolution of extremely dusty inner planetary systems.

Following the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in the La-H system, we studied the formation of new chemical compounds in the barium-hydrogen system at pressures from 75 to 173GPa. Using in situ generation of hydrogen from NH3BH3, we synthesized previously unknown superhydride BaH12 with a pseudocubic (fcc) Ba sublattice in four independent experiments. Density functional theory calculations indicate close agreement between the theoretical and experimental equations of state. In addition, we identified previously known P6/mmm-BaH2 and possibly BaH10 and BaH6 as impurities in the samples. Ab initio calculations show that newly discovered semimetallic BaH12 contains H-2 and H-3(-) molecular units and detached H-12 chains which are formed as a result of a Peierls-type distortion of the cubic cage structure. Barium dodecahydride is a unique molecular hydride with metallic conductivity that demonstrates the superconducting transition around 20K at 140GPa. Metallization of pure hydrogen via overlapping of electronic bands requires high pressure above 3 Mbar. Here the authors study the Ba-H system and discover a unique superhydride BaH12 that contains molecular hydrogen, which demonstrates metallic properties and superconductivity below 1.5 Mbar.

We present near-infrared Large Binocular Telescope LMIRCam imagery of the disk around the Herbig Ae/Be star AB Aurigae. A comparison of the surface brightness at K-s (2.16 itm), H2O narrowband (3.08 mu m), and L' (3.7 mu m) allows us to probe the presence of icy grains in this (pre)transitional disk environment. By applying reference differential imaging point-spread function subtraction, we detect the disk at high signal-to-noise ratios in all three bands. We find strong morphological differences between the bands, including asymmetries consistent with the observed spiral arms within 100 au in . An apparent deficit of scattered light at 3.08 mu m relative to the bracketing wavelengths (K-s and L') is evocative of ice absorption at the disk surface layer. However, the Delta(K-s - H2O) color is consistent with grains with little to no ice (0%-5% by mass). The Delta(H2O - L') color, conversely, suggests grains with a much higher ice mass fraction (-0.68), and the two colors cannot be reconciled under a single grain population model. Additionally, we find that the extremely red Delta(K-s - L') disk color cannot be reproduced under conventional scattered light modeling with any combination of grain parameters or reasonable local extinction values. We hypothesize that the scattering surfaces at the three wavelengths are not colocated, and that the optical depth effects in each wavelength result from probing the grain population at different disk surface depths. The morphological similarity between K-s and H2O suggests that their scattering surfaces are near one another, lending credence to the Delta(K-s - H2O) disk color constraint of <5% ice mass fraction for the outermost scattering disk layer.

Carbon-bearing phases show a rich variety of structural transitions as an adaptation to pressure. Of particular interest is the crossover from sp(2) carbon to sp(3) carbon, as physical and chemical properties of carbon in these distinct electronic configurations are very different. In this chapter we review pressure-induced sp(2)-sp(3) transitions in elemental carbon, carbonates, and hydrocarbons.