Transport and diffusion in a random medium (Q2583195)

In the present paper, particle transport in a spatially random medium is considered, that means the transport governed by the traditional, linear, time-and space-dependent transport equation for ``host (scattering center) and guest (scattered particle)''. The scattering is elastic and isotropic, and no absorption exists. If the host medium has uniform density, one knows that an initial burst of particles will, in time, approach a distribution described by the macroscopic time-dependent diffusion equation. In the case of random medium one finds that for a large class of such media the asymptotic behavior is unchanged by the stochasticity; there is neither a renormalization of the equation nor a change of the diffusion coefficient. The result is shown in detail for the leading correction caused by stochasticity, and a concise argument shows that the result holds also in higher order, term-by-term. It is mentioned that the result is model-sensitive -- a less realistic model may lead to renormalization and ambiguity. The nature of the correlation between fluctuations of density at large separation plays an important role in the analysis.