Numerical study of a first-order irreversible phase transition in a CO+NO catalyzed reaction model

The first-order irreversible phase transition (IPT) of the Yaldran-Khan model [Yaldran-Khan, J. Catal. 131, 369 (1991)] for the CO+NO reaction is studied using the constant-coverage (CC) ensemble and performing epidemic simulations. The CC method allows the study of hysteretic effects close to coexistence as well as the location of both the upper spinodal point and the coexistence point. Epidemic studies show that at coexistence the number of active sites decreases according to a (short-time) power law followed by a (long-time) exponential decay. It is concluded that first-order IPT's share many characteristics of their reversible counterparts, such as the development of short-ranged correlations, hysteretic effects, metastabilities, etc.