Applications of liquid state physics to the Earth's core

By use of the modern theory of liquids and some guidance from the hard-sphere model of liquid structure, the following new results have been derived for application to the Earth's outer core. (1) dK/$\text{d}\text{P ? 5 ? 5. 6P}$/K, where K is the incompressibility and P the pressure. This is valid for a high-pressure liquid near its melting point, provided that the pressure is derived primarily from a strongly repulsive pair potential φ. This result is consistent with seismic data, except possibly in the lowermost region of the outer core, and demonstrates the approximate universality of dK/dP proposed by Birch (1939) and Bullen (1949). (2) dlnT_M/dlnρ = (γC_V ? 1)/($\text{C}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>V</mtext>}}\text{?}\text{3}\text{2}\text{),}\text{where}\text{T}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>M</mtext>}}$ is the melting point, ρ the density, γ the atomic thermodynamic Grüneisen parameter and C_V the atomic contribution to the specific heat in units of Boltzmann's constant per atom. This reduces to Lindemann's law for C_V = 3 and provides further support for the approximate validity of this law. (3) It follows that the “core paradox” of Higgins and Kennedy can only occur if $\text{γ <}\text{2}\text{3}$. However, it is shown that $\text{γ <}\text{2}\text{3}\text{? ∫}{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}{}_0\text{(?g/?T)}{}_{\mathrm{\rho }}\text{r(}\text{d}\text{/}\text{d}\text{r)(r}{}^2\text{φ)}\text{d}\text{r > 0}$, which cannot be achieved for any strongly repulsive pair potential φ and the corresponding pair distribution function g. It is concluded that $\text{γ >}\text{2}\text{3}$ and that the core paradox is almost certainly impossible for any conceivable core composition. Approximate calculations suggest that γ ～ 1.3–1.5 in the core. Further work on the thermodynamics of the liquid core must await development of a physically realistic pair potential, since existing pair potentials may be unsatisfactory.