Gelation and localization in multicomponent coagulation with multiplicative kernel through branching processes

Abstract

The multicomponent coagulation equation is a generalisation of the Smoluchowski coagulation equation in which size of a particle is described by a vector. As with the original Smoluchowski equation, the multicomponent coagulation equation features gelation when supplied with a multiplicative kernel. Additionally, a new type of behaviour called localization is observed due to the multivariate nature of the particle size distribution. Here we extend and apply the branching process representation technique, which we introduced to study differential equations in our previous work, to find a concise probabilistic solution of the multicomponent coagulation equation supplied with monodisperse initial conditions and provide short proofs for the gelation time and localization.