Metal-nonmetal transition and the second critical point in expanded metals

¹ Joint Institute for High Temperatures, Russian Academy of Sciences - 13/19 Izhorskaia Str., Moscow 127412, Russia
² National Research University “MPEI” - Krasnokazarmennaya str. 14, Moscow 111250, Russia
³ Eindhoven University of Technology - P.O. Box 513, MB 5600 Eindhoven, The Netherlands, EU
⁴ Bogolyubov Institute for Theoretical Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine - 14B Metrolohichna Str., Kiev 03143, Ukraine

^(a) vic5907@mail.ru
^(b) satron@mail.ru
^(c) Zagorodny@nas.gov.ua

Received: 23 October 2012
Accepted: 10 December 2012

Abstract

Based on the nonrelativistic Coulomb model within which the matter is a system of interacting electrons and nuclei, using the quantum field theory and linear response theory methods, the opportunity for the existence of the second critical point in expanded metals, which is directly related to the metal-nonmetal transition, predicted by Landau and Zeldovitch, is theoretically justified. It is shown that the matter at the second critical point is in the state of true dielectric with zero static conductivity. The results obtained are in agreement with recent experiments for expanded metals. The existence of the second critical point is caused by the initial multi-component nature of the matter consisting of electrons and nuclei and the long-range character of the Coulomb interaction.