Diffusion through permeable interfaces: Fundamental equations and their application to first-passage and local time statistics
The diffusion equation is the primary tool to study the movement dynamics of a free Brownian particle, but when spatial heterogeneities in the form of permeable interfaces are present, no fundamental equation has been derived. Here we obtain such an equation from a microscopic description using a la...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
American Physical Society
2022-09-01
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| Series: | Physical Review Research |
| Online Access: | http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.L032039 |
| Summary: | The diffusion equation is the primary tool to study the movement dynamics of a free Brownian particle, but when spatial heterogeneities in the form of permeable interfaces are present, no fundamental equation has been derived. Here we obtain such an equation from a microscopic description using a lattice random walk model. The sought after Fokker-Planck description and the corresponding backward Kolmogorov equation are employed to investigate first-passage and local time statistics and gain new insights. Among them a surprising phenomenon, in the case of a semibounded domain, is the appearance of a regime of dependence and independence on the location of the permeable barrier in the mean first-passage time. The new formalism is completely general: it allows to study the dynamics in the presence of multiple permeable barriers as well as reactive heterogeneities in bounded or unbounded domains and under the influence of external forces. |
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| ISSN: | 2643-1564 |