On the dynamics of some complex fluids

The present thesis is devoted to the dynamics of specific complex fluids. On the one hand we studythe dynamics of the so-called nematic liquid crystals, through the models proposed by Ericksen and Leslie, Beris and Edwards, Qian and Sheng.On the other hand we analyze the dynamics of a temperature-dependent complex fluid, whose dynamics is governed by the Boussinesq system.Nematic liquid crystals are materials exhibiting a state of matter between an ordinary fluid and a solid. In this thesis we are interested in studying the Cauchy problem associated to eachsystem modelling their hydrodynamics. At first, we establish some well-posedness results, such asexistence and uniqueness of global-in-time weak or classical solutions. Moreover we also analyzesome dynamical behaviours of these solutions, such as propagations of both higher and lowerregularities.The general framework for the initial data is that of Besov spaces, which extend the most widelyknown classes of Sobolev and Holder spaces.The Ericksen-Leslie system is studied in a simplified form proposed by F. Lin and C. Liu,which retains the main difficulties of the original one. We consider both a two-dimensional and athree-dimensional space-domain. We assume the density to be no constant, i.e. the inhomogeneouscase, moreover we allow it to present discontinuities along an interface so that we can describe amixture of liquid crystal materials with different densities. We prove the existence of global-in-timeweak solutions under smallness conditions on the initial data in critical homogeneous Besov spaces.These solutions are invariant under the scaling behaviour of the system. We also show that theuniqueness holds under a tiny extra-regularity for the initial data.The Beris-Edwards system is analyzed in a two-dimensional space-domain. We achieve existenceand uniqueness of global-in-time weak solutions when the initial data belongs to specific Sobolevspaces (without any smallness condition). The regularity of these functional spaces is suitable inorder to well define a weak solution. We achieve the uniqueness result through a specific analysis,controlling the norm of the difference between to weak solutions and performing a delicate doublelogarithmicestimate. Then, the uniqueness holds thanks to the Osgood lemma. We also achieve aresult about regularity propagation.The Qian-Sheng model is analyzed in a space-domain with dimension greater or equal than two.In this case, we emphasize some important characteristics of the system, especially the presence ofan inertial term, which generates significant difficulties. We perform the existence of a Lyapunovfunctional and the existence and uniqueness of classical solutions under a smallness condition forthe initial data.Finally we deal with the well-posedness of the Boussinesq system. We prove the existence ofglobal-in-time weak solutions when the space-domain has a dimension greater or equal than two.We deal with the case of a viscosity dependent on the temperature. The initial temperature is justsupposed to be bounded, while the initial velocity belongs to some critical Besov Space. The initialdata have a large vertical component while the horizontal components fulfil a specific smallnessconditions: they are exponentially smaller than the vertical component.