Important plutonium property calculated for the first time

Lattice vibrations (phonons) are important for all equation-of-state modeling. A recent paper by PLS researchers Per Söderlind and Lin Yang (both PHYS) describes results from the first-ever calculation of α-plutonium phonon density of states. The first-principles model agrees very well with the results of x-ray scattering experiments. Further, the calculated specific heat is in excellent agreement with the experiment. The study is published in Scientific Reports.

[P. Söderlind and L.H. Yang, Phonon density of states for α-plutonium from density-functional theory, Scientific Reports 9, 18682 (2019), doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-55343-z.]