Equation of state and melting curve of helium to very high pressure

Abstract
An "exponential-six" interatomic pair potential, together with accurate statistical models for solid and liquid phases, is shown to yield good agreement with experimental pressure-volume and melting-curve data for He4 up to 120 kbar. For pressures from 120 kbar to 250 Mbar, linear-muffin-tin-orbitals electron-band-theory calculations have been used to obtain the T=0 pressure-volume isotherm. An effective pair potential is fitted to these results in order to compute the melting curve and shock Hugoniot curve in this region. The band-theory calculations indicate T=0 metallization at 112 Mbar.