Conceptual model of coalescence and break-up in the presence of external agitation

A Markovian probabilistic cellular automaton with the capability to capture the essential phenomenology of coalescence and break-up processes in the presence of external agitation is introduced. The existence of homogeneous stationary states of the model which admit large cluster formation for a range of agitation speeds is analytically predicted by mean field calculations. Through mean field analysis it is possible to obtain formulas that link experimental and model parameters on the base of simple measurable quantities. In this way, the experimental conditions for which a desirable stationary particle size distribution should be expected can be derived.