Anomaly of Crystal Lattice Thermal Expansion and Bulk Modulus behavior of δ -Plutonium
Mirmelstein A.V., Matvienko V.N.

Received: June 4, 2025

DOI: 10.7868/S3034641X25110108

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Anomalous behavior of thermal expansion and bulk modulus for the face centered cubic phase of metallic plutonium is considered proceeding from the valence-fluctuating nature of the Pu 5f electrons. It is shown that the approach based on the fundamental properties of the systems the ground state of which is a quantum-mechanical superposition of the localized and itinerant electron configurations allows to quantitatively describe temperature dependence of the crystal lattice parameters and bulk moduli for both gallium-stabilized Pu-Ga alloy with fcc structure and unalloyed δ -Pu within the fcc phase existence region.