Field-theory methods in coagulation theory

Coagulating systems are systems of chaotically moving particles that collide and coalesce, producing daughter particles of mass equal to the sum of the masses involved in the respective collision event. The present article puts forth basic ideas underlying the application of methods of quantum-field theory to the theory of coagulating systems. Instead of the generally accepted treatment based on the use of a standard kinetic equation that describes the time evolution of concentrations of particles consisting of a preset number of identical objects (monomers in the following), one introduces the probability W(Q, t) to find the system in some state Q at an instant t for a specific rate of transitions between various states. Each state Q is characterized by a set of occupation numbers Q = {n1, n2, ..., ng, ...}, where ng is the total number of particles containing precisely g monomers. Thereupon, one introduces the generating functional Ψ for the probability W(Q, t). The time evolution of Ψ is described by an equation that is similar to the Schrödinger equation for a one-dimensional Bose field. This equation is solved exactly for transition rates proportional to the product of the masses of colliding particles. It is shown that, within a finite time interval, which is independent of the total mass of the entire system, a giant particle of mass about the mass of the entire system may appear in this system. The particle in question is unobservable in the thermodynamic limit, and this explains the well-known paradox of mass-concentration nonconservation in classical kinetic theory. The theory described in the present article is successfully applied in studying the time evolution of random graphs.