With the exception of lithium, alkali metals do not react with elemental nitrogen either at ambient conditions or at elevated temperatures, requiring the search for alternative synthetic routes to their nitrogen-containing compounds. Here using a controlled decomposition of sodium azide (NaN3) at high pressure conditions, we synthesize two novel compounds, Na-3(N-2)(4) and NaN2, both containing dinitrogen anions. NaN2 synthesized at 4 GPa might be the common intermediate in high-pressure solid-state metathesis reactions, where NaN3 is used as a source of nitrogen, while Na-3(N-2)(4) opens a new class of compounds, where [N-2] units accommodate a noninteger formal charge of 0.75-. This finding can dramatically extend the expected compositions in other group 1 and 2 metal-nitrogen systems. Electronic structure calculations show the metallic character for both compounds.

We present the discovery of an extreme flaring event from Proxima Cen by the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), Hubble Space Telescope (HST), Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the du Pont Telescope that occurred on 2019 May 1. In the millimeter and FUV, this flare is the brightest ever detected, brightening by a factor of >1000 and >14,000 as seen by ALMA and HST, respectively. The millimeter and FUV continuum emission trace each other closely during the flare, suggesting that millimeter emission could serve as a proxy for FUV emission from stellar flares and become a powerful new tool to constrain the high-energy radiation environment of exoplanets. Surprisingly, optical emission associated with the event peaks at a much lower level with a time delay. The initial burst has an extremely short duration, lasting for <10 s. Taken together with the growing sample of millimeter M dwarf flares, this event suggests that millimeter emission is actually common during stellar flares and often originates from short burst-like events.

Alkaline earth metal peroxides are typical examples of ionic compounds containing polyanions. We herein report a stable BaO2 phase at high pressure up to 130 GPa found via a first-principles computational structure search and high-pressure experimental investigations. The identified monoclinic structure (space group C2/m) can be derived by sublattice distortions of Ba atoms and peroxide groups associated with the phonon mode softening of the lower-pressure Cmmm structure. Contrary to the previous expectation of polymerization of the peroxide group at elevated pressure, this phase retains the peroxide group and, interestingly, exhibits an insulating behavior demonstrating an increase of the band gap under compression. Our synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements could not distinguish between Cmmm and C2/m BaO2 definitively because the difference in XRD patterns is very subtle. However, our data do not show any sign of polymerization transition up to 120 GPa. Raman spectra of the O-O peroxide vibration show a small anomaly in frequency at 110 GPa, which is qualitatively like that predicted theoretically due to the Cmmm to C2/m phase transition, thus supporting the predicted transformation.

The ultrafast synthesis of epsilon-Fe3N1+x in a diamond-anvil cell (DAC) from Fe and N-2 under pressure was observed using serial exposures of an X-ray free electron laser (XFEL). When the sample at 5 GPa was irradiated by a pulse train separated by 443 ns, the estimated sample temperature at the delay time was above 1400 K, confirmed by in situ transformation of alpha- to gamma-iron. Ultimately, the Fe and N-2 reacted uniformly throughout the beam path to form Fe3N1.33, as deduced from its established equation of state (EOS). We thus demonstrate that the activation energy provided by intense X-ray exposures in an XFEL can be coupled with the source time structure to enable exploration of the time-dependence of reactions under high-pressure conditions.

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.