Static and Dynamic Structures of Supercritical Fluid Hg Accompanying the Metal-Nonmetal Transition

Abstract

We have carried out x-ray diffraction, small-angle x-ray scattering and high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering measurements for supercritical fluid Hg accompanying the metal-nonmetal (M-NM) transition using synchrotron radiation at SPring-8. In these structural studies we have found an increase in the short-range correlation length and the dynamical sound velocity much faster than the adiabatic sound velocity in the M-NM transition region. These findings strongly suggest the existence of a peculiar fluctuation intrinsic to the M-NM transition in the fluid, which may reflect a first-order M-NM transition predicted by Landau, the winner of the Nobel Prize in physics.