Ordered phases of elongated micelles

How do orientational order and configurational entropy couple with micellar growth and intermicellar forces in liquid-crystalline phases? Rather severe approximations have to be employed in this formidably difficult problem in statistical mechanics. Recent progress in the field of ordered phases of elongated micelles centers on the necessity of including the undulatory entropy to circumvent potentially explosive growth in nematic and hexagonal phases. A quantitative understanding of experimental phase transitions is definitely lacking.