Nonequilibrium Phase Transitions in Models of Aggregation, Adsorption, and Dissociation

TL;DR

This paper investigates nonequilibrium phase transitions in a mass-aggregation model with processes like diffusion, aggregation, dissociation, adsorption, and desorption, revealing phase transitions with distinct steady-state behaviors.

Contribution

It analyzes two limits of the model, one conserving mass locally and one violating conservation, showing that both exhibit dynamical phase transitions in all dimensions.

Findings

In the conserved case, one phase has exponential decay, the other has an infinite aggregate.

In the non-conserved case, a similar transition occurs without the infinite aggregate.

Both cases exhibit phase transitions across all spatial dimensions.

Abstract

We study nonequilibrium phase transitions in a mass-aggregation model which allows for diffusion, aggregation on contact, dissociation, adsorption and desorption of unit masses. We analyse two limits explicitly. In the first case mass is locally conserved whereas in the second case local conservation is violated. In both cases the system undergoes a dynamical phase transition in all dimensions. In the first case, the steady state mass distribution decays exponentially for large mass in one phase, and develops an infinite aggregate in addition to a power-law mass decay in the other phase. In the second case, the transition is similar except that the infinite aggregate is missing.