Phase behavior of lyotropic liquid crystals

In these lectures, I discuss techniques to compute the phase diagram of lyotropic liquid crystals. I review the standard techniques to compute the free-energy of various phases. Subsequently, I focus on phase transitions in liquid crystals. Recent techniques to determine the dependence of phase boundaries on the shape and flexibility of the constituent molecules, are discussed. Finally, I devote attention to Monte Carlo techniques that are particularly suited to study the phase behavior of flexible molecules.