Eur. Phys. J. E (2016) 39: 125
https://doi.org/10.1140/epje/i2016-16125-3

Colloquium

Non-local fluctuation phenomena in liquids

¹ Laboratoire des Fluides Complexes et leurs Réservoirs, UMR 5150, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, 64600, Anglet, France
² Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), 2 Place Maurice Quentin, 75001, Paris, France
³ Departamento de Física Aplicada I, Facultad de Física, Universidad Complutense, 28040, Madrid, Spain
⁴ Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, 20742, College Park, MD, USA

^* e-mail: fabrizio.croccolo@univ-pau.fr

Received: 29 September 2016
Accepted: 18 November 2016
Published online: 20 December 2016

Abstract

Fluids in non-equilibrium steady states exhibit long-range fluctuations which extend over the entire system. They can be described by non-equilibrium thermodynamics and fluctuating hydrodynamics that assume local equilibrium for the thermophysical properties as a function of space and time. The experimental evidence for the consistency between this assumption of local equilibrium in the equations and the non-local fluctuation phenomena observed is reviewed.