Shock Compression and the Melting Curve for Argon

Abstract

Recent experimental shock-compression work on solid argon is analyzed to obtain an intermolecular potential. The intermolecular potential is used to compute the high-pressure melting curve. The author predicts that the shock-compression curve crosses the melting line at 50 kbar and just under 700 °K, but that the inherent experimental error is too large for the transition to be seen as a break in the $\mathrm{PV}$ or $U_s{U}_p$ curves.