Dissociation of dense liquid nitrogen

A theoretical model has been derived to examine the dissociation of shock-compressed liquid nitrogen. An important feature of the model is the introduction of a binding energy for the atomic state which leads to a volume-dependent dissociation energy. Calculated shock pressures and shock temperatures are in agreement with experiment. The model correctly predicts the highly unusual feature of a reflected shock point lying above the principal Hugoniot and of a decrease in the temperature of a reflected shock. The shock cooling is shown to be the consequence of the volume dependent dissociation energy. The overall transition is from a molecular to a metallic liquid