Fluctuation-driven heterogeneous chemical processes

We explore a new framework for describing the kinetics of a heterogeneous chemical reaction where two particles of the same chemical species form a reaction product of another chemical species on the surface of a seed particle. Traditional treatments neglect the effect of statistical fluctuations in populations. We employ techniques in a manner analogous to the treatment of quantum systems to develop a stochastic description of processes beyond the mean field approximation.

Christiane M. Losert-Valiente Kroon, Ian J. Ford · 2007