This book contains vivid presentations of experiments, general theoretical accounts, and computer simulations of complex fluids such as polymers, liquid crystals, gels, and colloids. Explanations in terms of concepts coming from statistical physics are emphasized.

Inhalt
I Membranes and Surfactant Systems.- Adhesion and Roughness of Biological Model Membranes.- The Sponge State: A Striking Isotropic Liquid Phase.- Pattern Formation Processes in Binary Mixtures with Surfactants.- Hydrodynamic Interprotein Interaction in a Biomembrane.- Ordering Process Below the Pre-transition Temperature in Multilamellar Lipid Solutions.- Anisotropic Dynamics in an Oriented Lipid Multibilayer Revealed by Vector EPR Spectroscopy.- II Gels.- Swelling of Gels and Diffusion of Molecules.- Phase Transition of D.N.A. Gel and Reentrant Phenomena in Acrylamide and Gelatin Gels.- Spongelike Domain Structure in a Two-Dimensional Model Gel Undergoing the Volume Phase Transition.- Ordered Structures Resulting from Photo-cross-links of Binary Polymer Blends Undergoing Phase Separation.- III Liquid Crystals.- Ordered Phases in Colloidal Suspensions of Tobacco Mosaic Virus.- A Model of Electro-rheological Fluid.- The Dynamical Structure Factor of Rodlike Polymers in the Isotropic Phase.- Pattern Formation in the Spatially Modulated Electrohydrodynamic Convection of Liquid Crystals.- Theory of Shear Thinning in Liquid Crystal Polymers, for the Lower Shear Rate Regime.- Hierarchical Discommensuration Pattern and Phase Transitions in the Electrohydrodynamic Convection of Liquid Crystals with a Periodic Substrate Potential.- IV Polymers.- Phase Transition and Self-Assembling Structures of Polymer Mixtures under Shear Flow.- Effects of Viscoelasticity on Polymer Diffusion.- MC Study of Effects of Shear on the Phase Transition of Binary Mixtures.- Domain Growth under Shear Flow.- Turbulent Flow of Dilute Polymer Solutions: An Approach to the Mechanism Producing Drag Reduction.- Anomalous Phase Separation Behavior in a Binary Mixture of Poly(vinyl methyl ether) and Water under Deep Quench Conditions.- Study of Pattern Formation Dynamics in a Polymer Mixture Undergoing Phase Separation by Digital Image Analysis.- Dependence of Molecular Weight and Tacticity of Poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) on Crystallization of Poly(ethyleneoxide) (PEO) in PEO/PMMA Blends.- Concentration-Dependent Double-Step Transition of the Diffusion Coefficient in Dilute Solutions of Styrene-Butadiene Diblock Copolymer in Selective Solvent.- Dynamic Electric Multipole Model for Colloid Particles.- V Phase Transitions in Two Dimensions.- Experimental Studies of Phase Transitions and Pattern Formation in Two Dimensions.- Geometrical Quasiparticle Condensation Model of Melting in Two Dimensions.- Mixed Polymer Films at the Air-Water Interface.- VI Coalescence and Domain Growth.- Simple Models for Coalescence of Fluid Droplets.- Vertex Model of Cellular Pattern Growth in Two and Three Dimensions.- Annihilation Kinetics of Particle-Antiparticle Systems with Long-Range Interaction.- A Simple Model for the Relation between Weight and Lifetime.- Dynamics of Ordering Processes in a Long-Range Exchange Model.- VII Pattern Formation.- Dendrites, Viscous Fingers, and the Theory of Pattern Formation.- Pattern Formation in Growth of Snow Crystals: Hexagonal and Dendritic Patterns.- Periodic Changes in the Structure of the Growing Crystal Surface.- Crystal Growth, Fractal Growth and Liquid-like Behavior in the Case of Thin Film Formation.- Elongation Process of Whisker Crystals with a Solution Layer.- Anisotropic Fractal Aggregation in a Finite Density Gas.- Multifractal Structure of Non-Newtonian Viscous Fingers.- A Crossover Phenomenon in Electrochemical Deposition.- VIII Chemical Reactions and Hydrodynamic Instabilities.- Global Mass Transport by Chemical Wave Propagation.- Self-Collapse of the Target Pattern due to Macroscopic Fluctuation in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction.- Chemical Sensing by use of Entrainment.- Nonlinear Response of Surface Waves in a Container under an External Parametric Forcing.- Uphill Diffusion and Chemical Layering in a Mineral-Fluid System.- Experiment on Magnetoadsorption of NO on Micropores.- Index of Contributors.