Dynamics of Nonequilibrium Processes: Surface Adsorption, Reaction-Diffusion Kinetics, Ordering and Phase Separation, a short review contributed to the book "Trends in Statistical Physics,"

TL;DR

This review discusses the complex dynamics of nonequilibrium systems across physics, chemistry, and biology, emphasizing fluctuations and collective effects in processes like surface adsorption, reaction kinetics, and phase separation.

Contribution

It provides a multidisciplinary overview of theoretical models and phenomena in nonequilibrium dynamics, highlighting the role of fluctuations and many-body effects.

Findings

Fluctuations significantly influence surface adsorption and reaction kinetics.

Collective effects lead to nonclassical dynamical behaviors.

Models reveal complex phase separation and coarsening dynamics.

Abstract

This short review covers a wide selection of topics from a multidisciplinary area of dynamics of nonequilibrium systems in physics, chemistry, biology. Theoretical models of colloid particle and protein deposition and adhesion at surfaces, accompanied by relaxation processes, of reaction kinetics with and without diffusion, of phase coarsening and nucleation, will be surveyed. The unifying feature of these systems is the importance of fluctuations and many-body, multiparticle collective effects, in determining the dynamical behavior which is typically nonclassical.