title: Noise-induced enhancement of chemical reactions in nonlinear flows.
abstract: Motivated by the problem of ozone production in atmospheres of urban areas, we consider chemical reactions of the general type: A+B-->2C, in idealized two-dimensional nonlinear flows that can generate Lagrangian chaos. Our aims differ from those in the existing work in that we address the role of transient chaos versus sustained chaos and, more importantly, we investigate the influence of noise. We find that noise can significantly enhance the chemical reaction in a resonancelike manner where the product of the reaction becomes maximum at some optimal noise level. We also argue that chaos may not be a necessary condition for the observed resonances. A physical theory is formulated to understand the resonant behavior. (c) 2002 American Institute of Physics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Center for Systems Science and Engineering Research, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287.
authors.forename: Zonghua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Ying-Cheng
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.forename: Juan M.
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Lopez