Single-Species Reactions on a Random Catalytic Chain

TL;DR

This paper provides an exact solution for a one-dimensional catalytic chain reaction, revealing how disorder and reaction dynamics influence pressure, density, and compressibility, with connections to random matrix theory.

Contribution

It introduces an exact analytical framework for a catalytically-activated annihilation reaction on a disordered chain, linking physical properties to Lyapunov exponents of random matrices.

Findings

Pressure decomposes into Langmuir and reaction-induced parts.

Explicit formulas for particle density and compressibility are derived.

Reaction effects are characterized by Lyapunov exponents of random matrices.

Abstract

We present an exact solution for a catalytically-activated annihilation A + A \to 0 reaction taking place on a one-dimensional chain in which some segments (placed at random, with mean concentration p) possess special, catalytic properties. Annihilation reaction takes place, as soon as any two A particles land from the reservoir onto two vacant sites at the extremities of the catalytic segment, or when any A particle lands onto a vacant site on a catalytic segment while the site at the other extremity of this segment is already occupied by another A particle. We find that the disorder-average pressure $P^{(quen)}$ per site of such a chain is given by $P^{(quen)} = P^{(lan)} + \beta^{-1} F$, where $P^{(lan)} = \beta^{-1} \ln(1+z)$ is the Langmuir adsorption pressure, (z being the activity and \beta^{-1} - the temperature), while $\beta^{-1} F$ is the reaction-induced contribution, which can be expressed, under appropriate change of notations, as the Lyapunov exponent for the product of 2 \times 2 random matrices, obtained exactly by Derrida and Hilhorst (J. Phys. A {\bf 16}, 2641 (1983)). Explicit asymptotic formulae for the particle mean density and the compressibility are also presented.