Resonance Reaction in Diffusion-Influenced Bimolecular Reactions

TL;DR

This paper reveals a new resonance phenomenon in bimolecular reactions influenced by fluctuating barriers, showing rate enhancement and violations of classical rate laws, with implications for complex system kinetics.

Contribution

It provides an exact analytical theory and simulations demonstrating resonance behavior and rate law violations in diffusion-influenced bimolecular reactions.

Findings

Resonance reaction behavior with rate enhancement.

Violation of reciprocal additivity law near resonance.

Implications for biomolecular and catalytic reaction interpretation.

Abstract

We investigate the influence of a stochastically fluctuating step-barrier potential on bimolecular reaction rates by exact analytical theory and stochastic simulations. We demonstrate that the system exhibits a new resonant reaction behavior with rate enhancement if an appropriately defined fluctuation decay length is of the order of the system size. Importantly, we find that in the proximity of resonance the standard reciprocal additivity law for diffusion and surface reaction rates is violated due to the dynamical coupling of multiple kinetic processes. Together, these findings may have important repercussions on the correct interpretation of various kinetic reaction problems in complex systems, as, e.g., in biomolecular association or catalysis.