Collective dynamics of liquid gold: a truly golden neutron study combining BRISP measurements and simulations by the Computing for Science group

Scientific Highlight ILL -Propagation of acoustic-like excitations in the form of very-short-wavelength collective motions, is a fundamental phenomenon in the physics of liquids. In the recent literature [1] the issue has been raised whether the behaviour of these excitations differs in metals because of the presence of the conduction electron sea. In fact, liquid metals have been so far described by resorting to models of the dynamic structure factor more complex than those typically employed for other systems. Searching for the possible presence of a “universal” behaviour, we turned our attention to liquid gold, never studied before.