It is possible to "stretch" a liquid and, when suitably prepared, liquids are capable of sustaining substantial levels of tension, often for significant periods of time. These negative pressure states are metastable but can last for days - long enough for substantial experimental investigation. This volume is a review of recent and current research into the behaviour of liquids under negative pressure. Part I deals with the thermodynamics of stretched liquids. Part II discusses the physical and chemical behaviour of liquids under negative pressure. Part III contains papers on the effect of negative pressure on the solidification of a liquid. Part IV is devoted to stretched helium and Part V discusses cavitation in various stretched liquids. Part VI deals with the effect of foreign substances on cavitation.

Inhalt
Limits of stability for liquids under tension.- Limiting superheat of aqueous solutions at negative pressures.- Classical thermodynamics of states with negative absolute temperature or with negative absolute pressure.- Limiting tensions for liquids and glasses from laboratory and MD studies.- Investigation of the thermodynamic properties of a polarizable water model in a wide range of pressures around the temperature of maximum density.- Water at positive and negative pressures.- The thermophysical properties of liquids on the melting line at negative pressures.- Liquid-liquid phase equilibria in binary mixtures under negative pressure.- Measuring the properties of liquids and liquid mixtures at absolute negative pressures.- Limiting tensile strength of capillary-condensed liquids.- On the tricritical point of the isotropic-nematic transition in a rod-like mesogen hidden in the negative pressure region.- Negative pressure development during crystallization of polymers.- Cavitation during isothermal crystallization of isotactic polypropylene and poly(methylene oxide).- The limits of metastability of liquid helium.- Cavitation in 3He-3He liquid mixtures.- A Quantum Monte Carlo study of the negative pressure regime in quantum liquids.- Nucleation of bubbles on electrons in liquid helium.- Quantum statistics of metastable liquid helium.- Acoustic cavitation thresholds of ocean water.- Cavitation in liquids by classical nucleation theory and molecular dynamics simulations.- A study of cavitation phenomena using an atomic force microscope.- Cavitation thresholds, free surface and cavity cluster dynamics in liquids at shock wave reflection.- Relaxation effects and disintegration problems of cavitating liquids at pulse loading.- Measurements of the cavitation threshold of liquids under dynamic stressing by pulses of tension.- Negative pressure tail of a reflected pressure pulse: A lattice-Boltzmann study.- Ultrasonic cavitation in freon at room temperature.- Dependence on kinds of impurity gases in metals of negative pressures in water/metal Berhelot tube systems.- Heterogeneous nucleation, influence of heterophase fluctuations on the cavitation strenght, and the supercooling of liquids with phase inclusions.