Dynamics and Patterns in Complex Fluids

This text contains presentations of experiments, general theoretical accounts and computer simulations of complex fluids, such as polymers, liquid crystals, gels and coloids. The explanations are given in terms of statistical physics.

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The study of complex fluids is a vigorously evolving field of condensed matter physics with a highly interdisciplinary nature. Because this area is diverse and still in its infancy, the aim of the symposium was to clarify its definition by highlighting various problems. Experimental contributions to this volume reveal intriguing dynamical phenomena in polymers, liquid crystals, gels, colloids, and surfactant systems. These complex fluids are then treated in terms of defects, mesoscopic ordering, patterns, nonlinear response, and random interfaces, which are all of importance in current statistical physics.