Active particles in reactive disordered media: how does adsorption affects diffusion?

TL;DR

This study analyzes how adsorption affects the diffusion of active particles in disordered media, revealing phase transitions between normal and anomalous diffusion regimes influenced by adsorption dynamics.

Contribution

The paper provides an analytical formula for effective diffusion and uncovers phase transitions related to adsorption times and particle adsorption fraction in disordered media.

Findings

Finite mean adsorption time yields a calculable effective diffusion coefficient.

Infinite mean adsorption time causes a transition to anomalous diffusion.

Adsorbed particle fraction exhibits a second-order-like phase transition.

Abstract

In this work we study analytically and numerically the transport properties of non-interacting active particles moving on a $d$-dimensional disordered media. The disorder in the space is modeled by means of a set of non-overlapping spherical obstacles. We assume that obstacles are reactive in the sense that they react in the presence of the particles in an attractive manner: when the particle collides with an obstacle, it is attached during a random time (adsorption time), i.e., it gets adsorbed by an obstacle; thereafter the particle is detached from the obstacle and continues its motion in a random direction. We give an analytical formula for the effective diffusion coefficient when the mean adsorption time is finite. When the mean adsorption time is infinite, we show that the system undergoes a transition from a normal to anomalous diffusion regime. We also show that another transition takes place in the mean number of adsorbed particles: in the anomalous diffusion phase all the particles become adsorbed in the average. We show that the fraction of adsorbed particles, seen as an order parameter of the system, undergoes a second-order-like phase transition, because the fraction of adsorbed particles is not differentiable but changes continuously as a function of a parameter of the model.