THEORY OF DIFFUSION-INFLUENCED BIMOLECULAR REACTIONS IN SOLUTION - EFFECTS OF A STOCHASTIC GATING MODE

We have investigated the kinetics of diffusion-influenced bimolecular reactions in which one reactant has an internal mode, called the gating mode, that activates or deactivates its reactivity intermittently. The rate law and an expression for the time-dependent rate coefficient have been obtained from the general formalism based on the hierarchy of kinetic equations involving reactant distribution functions. The analytic expression obtained for the steady-state reaction rate constant coincides with the one obtained by Szabo et al., who derived the expression by employing the conventional concentration-gradient approach. For the time-dependent reaction rate coefficient, we obtained for the first time an exact analytic expression in the Laplace domain which was then inverted numerically to give the time-domain results.