Let’s say you could magically take some metallic hydrogen from Jupiter and transport it directly to the earth’s surface, say at sea level on a balmy 70 degree Fahrenheit day (or any other environment on earth if you’d like)? My thought was it would instantly go into a phase change, probably multiple phase changes, and, to paraphrase from Gallaxy Quest, turn inside out and explode! But, since I have no idea, I figured I’d ask here to see what 'dopers thoughts are.
NASA had a metallic hydrogen program. I think the hope was that once made it might be stable under standard conditions, or at least some easily obtained pressure and temperature. I guess at that point it would be “spring loaded”. Here is an article from last year:
Well…metallic hydrogen is that way due to immense pressures. Release that pressure and…boom. Like lifting the lid on a pressure cooker without slowly releasing the pressure first. That hydrogen will want to expand…rapidly and, to anyone nearby, violently.
Well, Lithium is only a bit bigger, and its a metal and a solid at STP.
Why then can’t hydrogen, once it is in a metal bonding arrangement remain as a solid ?
The science people call it metastable solid. It means there is an alternative form but its going to have to be forced to get there.
Carbon, with its covalent bonding, can be formed into the diamond arrangement only at high temperatures and pressures, and yet when it returns to STP, its still diamond.
Oh well, these examples are pure metal and carbon with its valency of 4 gives it a lot of options for bonding (so that it can be doing both covalent and metallic bonding, and thus lowering its zero point energy. )
I looked up why these things happen, but the discussions quickly hit the murky topic of “zero point energy”, and how to compare it to a baseline. Stuff there, such as pauli exclusion principle, defies “causality”, as in proper wording to keep it clear as to “cause and effect” .When its clear that pauli exclusion principle is guarding a high zero point energy, it may be the zero point energy, being unable to drop, enforcing the pauli exclusion principle, by pushing anything along if it did come around to the lower energy position.