On the growth of nonequilibrium spatial correlations in a model reaction diffusion system

The mesoscopic description of a system with chemical reactions predicts that if the detailed balance condition is not satisfied then the nonequilibrium spatial correlations between concentrations of reactants may appear. The present work is concerned with the dynamics of their growth. We assume that the system is homogeneous at the beginning and study how fast the nonequilibrium correlations develop. The theory based on the master equation is compared with molecular dynamics simulations performed for a model system of “reacting” hard spheres. The qualitative characteristics of the growth of the spatial correlations, predicted by the theory based on a master equation, are confirmed in our simulations. However, this theory fails to give the correct quantitative description of this process.