Roberto Livi is Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Florence, where he teaches courses on statistical physics and thermodynamics. He is also the Director of the Interdepartment Center for the Study of Complex Dynamics and an associate member of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) and of the Institute for Complex Systems of the National Research Council (CNR).

Preface; Acknowledgements; Notations and acronyms; 1. Brownian motion, Langevin and Fokker-Planck equations; 2. Linear response theory and transport phenomena; 3. From equilibrium to out-of-equilibrium phase transitions; 4. Out-of-equilibrium critical phenomena; 5. Stochastic dynamics of surfaces and interfaces; 6. Phase-ordering kinetics; 7. Highlights on pattern formation; Appendix A. Central limit theorem and its limitations; Appendix B. Spectral properties of stochastic matrices; Appendix C. Reversibility and ergodicity in a Markov chain; Appendix D. Diffusion equation and random walk; Appendix E. Kramers-Moyal expansion; Appendix F. Mathematical properties of response functions; Appendix G. The van der Waals equation; Appendix H. The Ising model; Appendix I. Derivation of the Ginzburg-Landau free energy; Appendix J. Kinetic Monte Carlo; Appendix K. Mean-field phase diagram of the bridge model; Appendix L. The deterministic KPZ and the Burgers' equation; Appendix M. The perturbative renormalization group for KPZ: a few details; Appendix N. The Gibbs-Thomson relation; Appendix O. The Allen-Cahn equation; Appendix P. The Rayleigh-Bénard instability; Appendix Q. General conditions for the Turing instability; Appendix R. Steady states of the one-dimensional TDGL equation; Appendix S. Multiscale analysis; Index.