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Journal article

Diffusion-limited reactions in crowded environments

  • Dorsaz, Nicolas University of Fribourg, Adolphe Merkle Institute, Switzerland
  • De Michele, C. Universita di Roma La Sapienza, Dipartimento di Fisica, Italy
  • Piazza, F. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institute of Theoretical Physics, Laboratory of Statistical Biophysics, Switzerland - Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire (CBM-CNRS), Orléans, France
  • De Los Rios, P. Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institute of Theoretical Physics, Laboratory of Statistical Biophysics, Switzerland
  • Foffi, Giuseppe Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Institute of Theoretical Physics, Switzerland
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    13.09.2010
Published in:
  • Physical Review Letters. - 2010, vol. 105, no. 12, p. 120601
English Diffusion-limited reactions are usually described within the Smoluchowski theory, which neglects interparticle interactions. We propose a simple way to incorporate excluded-volume effects building on simulations of hard sphere in the presence of a sink. For large values of the sink-to-particle size ratio Rs, the measured encounter rate is in good agreement with a simple generalization of the Smoluchowski equation at high densities. Reducing Rs, the encounter rate is substantially depressed and becomes even nonmonotonic for Rs≪1. Concurrently with the saturation of the rate, stationary density waves set in close to the sink. A mean-field analysis helps to shed light on the subtle link between such ordering and the slowing down of the encounter dynamics. Finally, we show how an infinitesimal amount of nonreacting impurities can equally slow down dramatically the reaction.
Faculty
Faculté des sciences et de médecine
Department
AMI - Soft Nanoscience
Language
  • English
Classification
Physics
License
License undefined
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/301611
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