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Hydrocarbon mixtures are extremely abundant in the Universe, and diamond formation from them can play a crucial role in shaping the interior structure and evolution of planets. With first-principles accuracy, we first estimate the diamond…
How life started on Earth is an unsolved mystery. There are various hypotheses for the location ranging from outer space to the seafloor, subseafloor or potentially deeper. Here, we applied extensive ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD)…
Neutron stars provide a fertile environment for exploring superfluidity under extreme conditions. It is not surprising that Cooper pairing occurs in dense matter since nucleon pairing is observed in nuclei as energy differences between…
Water (H$_{2}$O), in all forms, is an important constituent in planetary bodies, controlling habitability and influencing geological activity. Under conditions found in the interior of many planets, as the pressure increases, the H-bonds in…
Planet formation models suggest broad compositional diversity in the sub-Neptune/super-Earth regime, with a high likelihood for large atmospheric metal content (> 100 x Solar). With this comes the prevalence of numerous plausible bulk…
Observation of high-temperature superconductivity in sulfur hydrides at megabar pressures has generated an irresistible wave on searching for new superconductors in other compressed hydrogen-rich compounds. An immediate effort is towards…
Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) is a key feedstock molecule for the production of life's building blocks. The formation of HCN in an N$_2$-rich atmospheres requires first that the triple bond between N$\equiv$N be severed, and then that the atomic…
Superionic ice, where water molecules dissociate into a lattice of oxygen ions and a rapidly diffusing 'gas' of protons, represents an exotic state of matter with broad implications for planetary interiors and energy applications. Recently,…
Earth's tectonic processes regulate the formation of continental crust, control its unique deep water and carbon cycles, and are vital to its surface habitability. A major driver of steady-state plate tectonics on Earth is the sinking of…
We review the interior structure and evolution of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and giant exoplanets with particular emphasis on constraining their global composition. Compared to the first edition of this review, we provide a new…
Collisions of ice particles play an important role in the formation of planetesimals and comets. In recent work we showed, that CO$_2$ ice behaves like silicates in collisions. The resulting assumption was that it should therefore stick…
First-principles calculations and analysis of the thermodynamic, structural, and electronic properties of liquid SiO$_2$ characterize the bonded-to-atomic transition at 0.1--1.6 TPa and 10$^4$--10$^5$ K (1--7 eV), the high-energy-density…
Planets with masses between Earth and Neptune often have radii that imply the presence of volatiles, suggesting that water may be abundant in their interiors. However, directly observing the precise water mass fraction and water…
We consider super-Earth sized planets which have a water mass fraction that is large enough to form an external mantle composed of high pressure water ice polymorphs and that lack a substantial H/He atmosphere. We consider such planets in…
This article provides an overview of how models of giant planet interiors are constructed. We review measurements from past space missions that provide constraints for the interior structure of Jupiter. We discuss typical three-layer…
Water ice is abundant both astrophysically, for example in molecular clouds, and in planetary systems. The Kuiper belt objects, many satellites of the outer solar system, the nuclei of comets and some planetary rings are all known to be…
Ammonia is predicted to be one of the major components in the depths of the ice giant planets Uranus and Neptune. Their dynamics, evolution, and interior structure are insufficiently understood and models rely imperatively on data for…
The immiscibility of hydrogen-helium mixture under the temperature and pressure conditions of planetary interiors is crucial for understanding the structures of gas giant planets (e.g., Jupiter and Saturn). While the experimental probe at…
Exoplanets with substantial Hydrogen/Helium atmospheres have been discovered in abundance, many residing extremely close to their parent stars. The extreme irradiation levels these atmospheres experience causes them to undergo hydrodynamic…
Ab initio free energy calculations are employed to derive the entropy of liquid and superionic water over a wide range of conditions in the interiors of Uranus and Neptune. The resulting adiabats are much shallower in pressure-temperature…