We finally know the exact moment aluminum turns from a liquid into a gas, after decades of guessing within a 4,000-degree range.
April 15, 2026
Original Paper
Location of the liquid-vapor critical point in aluminum
arXiv · 2604.10561
The Takeaway
Aluminum is one of the most common metals on Earth, yet we haven't known its 'critical point'—the exact temperature and pressure where liquid and gas become indistinguishable. Scientists have been guessing for decades, with different models disagreeing by as much as 4000K. This paper finally pinned it down to a precision of about 50K using advanced deep-learning simulations. This isn't just a trivia fact; knowing this 'boiling limit' is vital for understanding what happens in the cores of giant planets and how metals behave during extreme laser impacts. It’s like finally finding the exact boiling point of water after centuries of only knowing 'it gets hot somewhere between the freezer and the sun.'
From the abstract
The precise location of the liquid-vapor critical point (CP) in aluminum has remained elusive for decades, with reported critical temperatures spanning nearly 4000~K. Here we resolve this long-standing uncertainty by combining deep potential molecular dynamics with large-scale simulations trained on high-fidelity electronic-structure data. We benchmark multiple exchange-correlation functionals against experimental liquid densities and identify PBEsol as providing the most consistent description.