Multiple mechanisms of thermally activated plastic flow in shocked and unshocked tantalum. Revision 1

We argue that the principal features of the plastic flow behavior of Ta can be described a model that incorporates a two-component Peierls-type mechanism and an ``obstacle`` mechanism in series. We compare results of calculations based on such a model with flow data for unalloyed Ta before and after shock loading to 45 GPa for 1.8 {mu}s. Our data suggest that the shock loading changes only structural parameters.