Mesoscopic description of reactions under anomalous diffusion: A case study

M. G. W. Schmidt, F. Sagues, I. M. Sokolov

Published 2006-08-04Version 1

Reaction-diffusion equations deliver a versatile tool for the description of reactions in inhomogeneous systems under the assumption that the characteristic reaction scales and the scales of the inhomogeneities in the reactant concentrations separate. In the present work we discuss the possibilities of a generalization of reaction-diffusion equations to the case of anomalous diffusion described by continuous-time random walks with decoupled step length and waiting time probability densities, the first being Gaussian or Levy, the second one being an exponential or a power-law lacking the first moment. We consider a special case of an irreversible or reversible A ->B conversion and show that only in the Markovian case of an exponential waiting time distribution the diffusion- and the reaction-term can be decoupled. In all other cases, the properties of the reaction affect the transport operator, so that the form of the corresponding reaction-anomalous diffusion equations does not closely follow the form of the usual reaction-diffusion equations.