Equation of state of shock compressed liquid deuterium

Shock compression experiments carried out at Livermore using liquid deuteri um have measured the Hugoniot and shock temperature to pressures up to 3.2 Mbar. In the region between 4000 K to 10,000 K the prediction of small or n egative values of (dP/dT)(V) suggests that the molecular fluid dissociates into a mixture containing a significant fraction of string-like matter. In the temperature range from 20,000 to 50,000 K the fluid may be treated as a nearly degenerate liquid metal. Above 50,000 K electronic excitation becom es significant and the fluid must be treated as a a dense plasma. There app ears to be no experimental evidence in favor of a first order phase transit ion in the fluid.