Reply to “Comment on ‘Evidence of a first-order phase transition to metallic hydrogen’ ”

Howie, Dalladay-Simpson, and Gregoryanz Phys. Rev. B 96, 157102 (2017) comment on our observation of liquid metallic hydrogen (LMH). All of their objections are answered in our response. The experimental observation of LMH at static pressures stands on firm ground.

Figure 1

Raw un-normalized data for the reflectance signal as a function of time, showing rising reflectance when the heating laser pulse is on, for temperatures higher then $T_{\mathrm{c}}$. The 1680-K curve is in the region of bulk saturation of Fig. 4 in our paper [2]. Normalization yields $R_{\mathrm{s}}+1$, discussed in Supplemental Material of our paper [2].