Specialist Periodical Reports provide systematic and detailed review coverage of progress in the major areas of chemical research. Written by experts in their specialist fields the series creates a unique service for the active research chemist, supplying regular critical in-depth accounts of progress in particular areas of chemistry. For over 80 years the Royal Society of Chemistry and its predecessor, the Chemical Society, have been publishing reports charting developments in chemistry, which originally took the form of Annual Reports. However, by 1967 the whole spectrum of chemistry could no longer be contained within one volume and the series Specialist Periodical Reports was born. The Annual Reports themselves still existed but were divided into two, and subsequently three, volumes covering Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry. For more general coverage of the highlights in chemistry they remain a 'must'. Since that time the SPR series has altered according to the fluctuating degree of activity in various fields of chemistry. Some titles have remained unchanged, while others have altered their emphasis along with their titles; some have been combined under a new name whereas others have had to be discontinued.

Specialist Periodical Reports provide systematic and detailed review coverage of progress in the major areas of chemical research. Written by experts in their specialist fields the series creates a unique service for the active research chemist, supplying regular critical in-depth accounts of progress in particular areas of chemistry. For over 80 years the Royal Society of Chemistry and its predecessor, the Chemical Society, have been publishing reports charting developments in chemistry, which originally took the form of Annual Reports. However, by 1967 the whole spectrum of chemistry could no longer be contained within one volume and the series Specialist Periodical Reports was born. The Annual Reports themselves still existed but were divided into two, and subsequently three, volumes covering Inorganic, Organic and Physical Chemistry. For more general coverage of the highlights in chemistry they remain a 'must'. Since that time the SPR series has altered according to the fluctuating degree of activity in various fields of chemistry. Some titles have remained unchanged, while others have altered their emphasis along with their titles; some have been combined under a new name whereas others have had to be discontinued.

Russian contributors provide a synthesis of ideas drawn from dielectric, magnetic and elastic relaxation. Divided into three sections, the book commences with dielectric and related processes in simple liquids. Part two deals with the structure and dielectric relaxation of aqueous solutions. Lastly, it addresses magnetic and dielectric relaxation in liquid crystals and elastic relaxation in orientable polymers.

Theory of Electric Polarization, Volume II: Dielectrics in Time-Dependent Fields focuses on the processes, reactions, and principles involved in the application of dielectrics in time-dependent fields, as well as the Kerr effect, statistical mechanics, and polarization. The publication first examines the phenomenological theory of linear dielectrics in time-dependent fields; empirical description of dielectric relaxation; and the relationship between macroscopic and molecular dielectric relaxation behavior. Concerns cover the relationship between macroscopic and microscopic correlation functions; statistical mechanics of linear dissipative systems and the relationship between response functions and correlation functions; superpositions of distribution functions; and the use of complex dielectric constant in problems with time-dependent field sources. The book then ponders on the dipole correlation function, polarization in the infrared and optical frequency range, and the Kerr effect and related phenomena. Discussions focus on the Kerr effect in condensed systems, extensions of the Kerr effect, extrapolation of the refractive index to infinite wavelength, results obtained from computer simulations, rotational diffusion, and general aspects of molecular reorientation. The manuscript tackles the dielectric properties of molecular solids and liquid crystals and experimental determination of permanent dipole and quadrupole moments. The text is a valuable source of data for researchers interested in the application of dielectrics in time-dependent fields.

The Advances in Chemical Physics series provides the chemical physics and physical chemistry fields with a forum for critical, authoritative evaluations of advances in every area of the discipline. Filled with cutting-edge research reported in a cohesive manner not found elsewhere in the literature, each volume of the Advances in Chemical Physics series serves as the perfect supplement to any advanced graduate class devoted to the study of chemical physics.

The Advances in Chemical Physics series provides the chemical physics and physical chemistry fields with a forum for critical, authoritative evaluations of advances in every area of the discipline. Filled with cutting-edge research reported in a cohesive manner not found elsewhere in the literature, each volume of the Advances in Chemical Physics series serves as the perfect supplement to any advanced graduate class devoted to the study of chemical physics.

The topics covered in this book provide a qualitative and sometimes quantitative classic description of the wide-band 0-THz dielectric spectra of polar liquids, molecular libration-rotation (which is the reason for dielectric loss and absorption of electromagnetic waves), simple molecular models differing by the intermolecular-potential profiles, and present a comparison between the theoretical and experimental dependencies and derivation of the main results. A new feature is the application of a number of analytical models to different substances, including strongly absorbing nonassociating liquids, liquid water, water bound by macromolecules, and gas-like liquids. The presentation of the theory in this book is also new. It is based on the dynamic method in which the Brownian reorientations are considered implicitly, without direct solution of stochastic equations. This approach simplifies the theory. Senior students and experimentalists will find many of the results valuable.

This book has its or1g1n in a NATO Summer School organized from June 25 to July 7 1979, in Menton, France. The purpose of this School was a comparative study of the various aspects of vibra tional spectroscopy in molecular liquids and solids. This field has been rapidly expanding in the last decade; unfortunately, its development took place independently for liquids and for solids. In these circumstances, the comparison of the basic concepts and techniques used in these two branches of physics appeared as a necessity. The lectures given at the Menton Advanced Study Institute, as well as the exceptionally fruitful and lively discussions which followed them confirmed this point of view. The need of putting together these lectures, in the form of a monograph, clearly appeared during the ASI and the lecturers accepted to write down the material they presented at the Institute, improved thanks to the remarks of the participants. It is the result of this collective work which appears in the familiar Plenum Series.

The central theme, which threads through the entire book, concerns computational modeling methods for water. Modeling results for pure liquid water, water near ions, water at interfaces, water in biological microsystems, and water under other types of perturbations such as laser fields are described. Connections are made throughout the book with statistical mechanical theoretical methods on the one hand and with experimental data on the other. The book is expected to be useful not only for theorists and computer analysts interested in the physical, chemical, biological and geophysical aspects of water, but also for experimentalists in these fields.