Reaction-diffusion processes in the “adsorbate-substrate” system

Abstract

We obtain a chain of quantum kinetic reaction-diffusion-type equations for “adsorbate-substrate” system taking into account the coupling of a light particle with a metallic surface, the adsorbate surface diffusion by the tunnelling mechanism and the occurrence of bimolecular chemical reactions. We calculate the temperature dependence of the kinetic kernels related to the diffusion coefficients and the reaction rates. It is shown that one can alter the temperature dependence of the reaction rates by changing the “adsorbate-substrate” coupling. It is also shown that the mean field terms contribute to the activation energies of the reaction rates, while their contribution to the activation energies of the diffusion coefficients vanishes.