The effects of laminar mixing on reaction fronts and patterns

A wide variety of dynamical processes are influenced by some sort of reaction. In its most general sense, a “reaction” is when some species A changes into some other species B during a process, possibly via an interaction with other species. The most obvious example is a chemical reaction, when two or more reactants interact to form a third product, e.g., A + B  C or A + B  2A. Combustion is an example of a chemical reaction, either in a controlled environment such as an engine or in an uncontrolled environment such as a forest fire. But reaction dynamics are found in other fields of science and engineering. In biology, for example, life cycle processes can be treated as reactions with different states when an animal is born, grows, and dies. Contraction of a disease can be treated as a reaction with at least two distinct states (healthy and sick). And various processes within living organisms can be treated as reactions; for example, waves of electrical activity in the heart are treated as reactions. Other examples of reactions include phase transitions where, for example, a solid (state “A”) turns into a liquid (“B”).