Nonequilibrium phase transition in a model of diffusion, aggregation, and fragmentation

Abstract

We study the nonequilibrium phase transition in a model of aggregation of masses allowing for diffusion, aggregation on contact, and fragmentation. The model undergoes a dynamical phase transition in all dimensions. The steady-state mass distribution decays exponentially for large mass in one phase. In the other phase, the mass distribution decays as a power law accompanied, in addition, by the formation of an infinite aggregate. The model is solved exactly within a mean-field approximation which keeps track of the distribution of masses. In one dimension, by mapping to an equivalent lattice gas model, exact steady states are obtained in two extreme limits of the parameter space. Critical exponents and the phase diagram are obtained numerically in one dimension. We also study the time-dependent fluctuations in an equivalent interface model in (1+1) dimension and compute the roughness exponent χ and the dynamical exponent z analytically in some limits and numerically otherwise. Two new fixed points of interface fluctuations in (1+1) dimension are identified. We also generalize our model to include arbitrary fragmentation kernels and solve the steady states exactly for some special choices of these kernels via mappings to other solvable models of statistical mechanics.