Metallization of fluid nitrogen and the mott transition in highly compressed low-Z fluids

Electrical conductivities are reported for degenerate fluid nitrogen at pressures up to 180 GPa (1.8 Mbar) and temperatures of approximately 7000 K. These extreme quasi-isentropic conditions were achieved with multiple-shock compression generated with a two-stage light-gas gun. Nitrogen undergoes a nonmetal-metal transition at 120 GPa, probably in the monatomic state. These N data and previous conductivity data for H, O, Cs, and Rb are used to develop a general picture of the systematics of the nonmetal-metal transition in these fluids. Specifically, the density dependences of electrical conductivities in the semiconducting fluid are well correlated with the radial extent of the electronic charge-density distributions of H, N, O, Cs, and Rb atoms. These new data for N scale with previous data for O, as expected from their similar charge-density distributions.