High-energy-density physics

Matter whose energy density corresponds to pressures above about 1 million atmospheres behaves differently from the more familiar solid, liquid, gaseous, and plasma states. Instead, its properties and behavior overlap with systems known from astronomy and astrophysics--planetary interiors, stars, and the early universe. Here, Drake investigates high-energy-density (HED) physics laboratories, whose studies promise to yield a host of practical applications in addition to fundamental science. The HED regime extends, in principle, to indefinitely high temperature and energy density. The most spectacular recent controversy in HED physics involved the behavior of cryogenic deuterium compressed by a strong shock wave. Deuterium is denser as a liquid than common hydrogen and allows experimenters to produce a higher pressure. With increasing compression, condensed hydrogen or deuterium changes from insulator to conductor. Applications of HED physics in industry, medicine, and smaller-scale science projects will often involve tabletop systems--small pulsed-power systems or lasers like the HERCULES.