Shock Compression of Liquid Helium to 56 GPa (560 kbar)

The first shock-compression experiments on liquid helium are reported. With a two-stage light-gas gun, liquid He at 4.3 K and 1 atm was shocked to 16 GPa and 12 000 K and double shocked to 56 GPa and 21 000 K. Liquid perturbation theory has been used to determine an effective interatomic potential from which the equation of state of He can be obtained over a wide range of densities and temperatures.