Since 1985, lattice gas automata have become a widely and actively explored field. Academic groups and industrial laboratories around the world have invested considerable effort in their research activities to drive the subject in various new and promising directions. As a result, the literature on lattice gases and related topics has grown so rapidly and has become so voluminous that an exhaustive list and a detailed review of all relevant lattice gas publications would practically make a book by itself.

Here we select research areas where lattice gases have played an important role, and, for each of them, we quote articles considered as representative, historically or presently. Our review is by no means complete and our choices are certainly selective; unavoidably we haven't done justice to those whose work escaped our selection. Nevertheless we have attempted to cover a range of works expanding over various aspects of the subject in the available literature. Our goal will be reached if the reader finds this chapter a helpful tool for exploring the subject beyond the scope of this book.

The historical ‘roots’

Discrete Kinetic theory

In the early sixties, the problem of shock waves in dilute gases was a subject of increasing research effort, for fundamental as well as industrial reasons.