Capture of particles undergoing discrete random walks

Robert M. Ziff 1, Satya N. Majumdar 2, Alain Comtet 2, 3

Journal of Chemical Physics 130, 20 (2009) 204104

It is shown that particles undergoing discrete-time jumps in 3D, starting at a distance r0 from the center of an adsorbing sphere of radius R, are captured with probability (R – c sigma)/r0 for r0 much greater than R, where c is related to the Fourier transform of the scaled jump distribution and sigma is the distribution’s root-mean square jump length. For particles starting on the surface of the sphere, the asymptotic survival probability is non-zero (in contrast to the case of Brownian diffusion) and has a universal behavior sigma/(R sqrt(6)) depending only upon sigma/R. These results have applications to computer simulations of reaction and aggregation.

  • 1. Michigan Center for Theoretical Physics and Department of chemical Engineering,
    University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
  • 2. Laboratoire de Physique Théorique et Modèles Statistiques (LPTMS),
    CNRS : UMR8626 – Université Paris XI – Paris Sud
  • 3. Unite mixte de service de l’institut Henri Poincaré (UMSIHP),
    CNRS : UMS839 – Université Paris VI – Pierre et Marie Curie
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