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  • Open Access

Momentum-Resolved X-Ray Thomson Scattering Benchmark of Electronic-Response Models in Warm Dense Aluminium

Dmitrii S. Bespalov1,2,*, Ulf Zastrau1, Zhandos A. Moldabekov3,4, Thomas Gawne5,4, Tobias Dornheim3,5,4, Moyassar Meshhal2, Alexis Amouretti6,7, Michal Andrzejewski1, Karen Appel1 et al.

Carsten Baehtz4, Erik Brambrink1, Khachiwan Buakor1, Carolina Camarda1, David Chin8, Gilbert Collins8,9, Céline Crépisson9, Adrien Descamps10, Jon Eggert11, Luke B. Fletcher12, Alessandro Forte9, Gianluca Gregori9, Marion Harmand13, Oliver S. Humphries1, Hauke Höppner4, Jonas Kuhlke2,4, William Lynn10, Julian Lütgert2, Masruri Masruri4, Emma E. McBride10, Ryan Stewart McWilliams14, Alan Augusto Sanjuan Mora2, Jean-Paul Naedler2, Paul Neumayer15, Charlotte Palmer10, Alexander Pelka4, Lea Pennacchioni16, Calum Prestwood1,10, Natalia A. Pukhareva17, Chongbing Qu2, Divyanshu Ranjan18,2, Ronald Redmer2, Michael Röper18, Christoph Sahle7, Samuel Schumacher2, Jan-Patrick Schwinkendorf4, Melanie J. Sieber16, Madison Singleton19, Ethan Smith8, Christian Sternemann20, Thomas Stevens9, Michael Stevenson2, Cornelius Strohm18, Minxue Tang18, Monika Toncian4, Toma Toncian4, Thomas Tschentscher1, Sam M. Vinko9, Justin S. Wark9, Max Wilke16, Dominik Kraus2,3, and Thomas R. Preston1,†

  • *Contact author: dmitrii.bespalov@xfel.eu
  • †Contact author: thomas.preston@xfel.eu
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Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 245102 – Published 18 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/86cw-8wm5

Abstract

The robust diagnosis of conditions generated in warm dense matter experiments remains a persistent challenge. Here, we describe the measurement of shock-compressed aluminium at 50 GPa with angle-resolved femtosecond x-ray Thomson scattering (XRTS) over a wide range of scattering wave vectors at the European X-Ray Free-Electron Laser. The measured plasmon dispersion and line shape show that the de facto standard approach for analyzing XRTS spectra, using uniform-electron-gas models, systematically overestimates the resonance energy by up to 8 eV. We present an approach using ab initio methods that agrees within the experimental uncertainty and demonstrates how accounting for shock-induced disorder in shock-compressed systems is critical for their understanding, providing evidence that ab initio treatments are required for reliable XRTS inference in warm dense aluminium.

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Information

Phys. Rev. Lett. 136, 245102– Published 18 June, 2026
  • Received 15 January 2026
  • Revised 5 April 2026
  • Accepted 1 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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