Revisit of the relationship between the elastic properties and sound velocities at high pressures

The second-order elastic constants and stress-strain coefficients are defined, respectively, as the second derivatives of the total energy and the first derivative of the stress with respect to strain. Since the Lagrangian and infinitesimal strain are commonly used in the two definitions above, the second-order elastic constants and stress-strain coefficients are separated into two categories, respectively. In general, any of the four physical quantities is employed to characterize the elastic properties of materials without differentiation. Nevertheless, differences may exist among them at non-zero pressures, especially high pressures. Having explored the confusing issue systemically in the present work, we find that the four quantities are indeed different from each other at high pressures and these differences depend on the initial stress applied on materials. Moreover, the various relations between the four quantities depicting elastic properties of materials and high-pressure sound velocities are also derived from the elastic wave equations. As examples, we calculated the high-pressure sound velocities of cubic tantalum and hexagonal rhenium using these nexus. The excellent agreement of our results with available experimental data suggests the general applicability of the relations.