Related papers: Stabilization of S3O4 at High Pressure-Implication…
Planet population synthesis is an integral tool for linking exoplanets to their formation environments. Most planet population synthesis studies have focused on the carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O) in gas or solids, yet more insight into planet…
The abundance of volatile sulfur in dense clouds is long-standing problem in studies of the physics and chemistry of star-forming regions. Sulfur is an important species because its low ionization potential may possibly make it an important…
The newfound ability to detect SO2 in exoplanet atmospheres presents an opportunity to measure sulfur abundances and so directly test between competing modes of planet formation. In contrast to carbon and oxygen, whose dominant molecules…
The high pressure structural and electronic evolution of bulk MoS$_2$, an important transition metal layered dichalchogenide, is currently under active investigation. Recent theoretical and experimental work predicted and verified a 2H$_c…
The Mg-Si-O system is the major Earth and rocky planet-forming system. Here, through quantum variable-composition evolutionary structure explorations, we have discovered several unexpected stable binary and ternary compounds in the Mg-Si-O…
Sulfur has recently been found to be a superconductor at high pressure. At ~93 GPa Tc is 10.1 K, and the sulfur is in a base-centered orthorhombic (b.c.o) structure. At ~160 GPa Tc is 17 K and sulfur is in a rhobohedral (b-Po) structure.…
JWST has revealed sulfur chemistry in giant exoplanet atmospheres, where molecules such as SO2 trace photochemistry, metallicity, and formation and migration. To ascertain the conditions that determine whether (or how much) SO2, H2S, and…
We present and validate a new network of atmospheric thermo-chemical and photo-chemical sulfur reactions. We use a 1-D chemical kinetics model to investigate these reactions as part of a broader HCNO chemical network in a series of hot and…
In the standard rebound theory of earthquakes, elastic deformation energy is progressively stored in the crust until a threshold is reached at which it is suddenly released in an earthquake. We review three important paradoxes, the strain…
Planets with 2 $R_{\oplus}$ < $R$ < 3 $R_{\oplus}$ and orbital period $<$100 d are abundant; these sub-Neptune exoplanets are not well understood. For example, $Kepler$ sub-Neptunes are likely to have deep magma oceans in contact with their…
Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a prototype molecular system and a sister molecule of water. The phase diagram of solid H2S at high pressures remains largely unexplored arising from the challenges in dealing with the looser S-H bond and larger…
Sulfur chemistry plays a central role in controlling the atmospheric structure, cloud formation, and composition of Venus and Venus-like exoplanets. However, key reactions involving ground- and excited-state sulfur species remain poorly…
Synchrotron X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy have been used to study chemical reactions of molecular hydrogen (H2) with sulfur (S) at high pressures. We find theoretically predicted Cccm and Im-3m H3S to be the reaction products at…
The appropriateness of including Hg among the transition metals has been debated for a long time. Although the synthesis of HgF$_{4}$ molecules in gas phase was reported before, the molecules show strong instabilities and dissociate.…
Sulfur gases are common components in the volcanic and biological emission on Earth, and are expected to be important input gases for atmospheres on terrestrial exoplanets. We study the atmospheric composition and the spectra of terrestrial…
We theoretically give an infinite number of metastable crystal structures for the superconducting sulfur hydride H$_{x}$S under pressure. It has been thought that theoretically predicted structures of H$_{2}$S and H$_{3}$S exhibit low and…
The depletion of SO$_2$ and H$_2$O in and above the clouds of Venus (45 -- 65 km) cannot be explained by known gas-phase chemistry and the observed composition of the atmosphere. We apply a full-atmosphere model of Venus to investigate…
The main carrier of sulfur in dense clouds, where it is depleted from the gas phase, remains a mystery. Shock waves in young molecular outflows disrupt the ice mantles and allow us to directly probe the material that is ejected into the gas…
Sulfur has been observed to be severely depleted in dense clouds leading to uncertainty in the molecules that contain it and the chemistry behind their evolution. Here, we aim to shed light on the sulfur chemistry in young stellar objects…
Context. Photochemistry is a key process driving planetary atmospheres away from local thermodynamic equilibrium. Recent observations of the H$_2$ dominated atmospheres of hot gas giants have detected SO$_2$ as one of the major products of…