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Updated: May 26, 2026

The Diffusion of Passive Tracers in Laminar Shear Flow
Published on: May 1, 2018
Analytic solution of the fractional advection-diffusion equation for the time-of-flight experiment in a finite
B W Philippa1, R D White, R E Robson
1School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, James Cook University, Townsville 4811, Australia. bronson.philippa@my.jcu.edu.au
Abstract:
A general analytic solution to the fractional advection diffusion equation is obtained in plane parallel geometry. The result is an infinite series of spatial Fourier modes which decay according to the Mittag-Leffler function, which is cast into a simple closed-form expression in Laplace space using the Poisson summation theorem. An analytic expression for the current measured in a time-of-flight experiment is derived, and the sum of the slopes of the two respective time regimes on logarithmic axes is demonstrated to be -2, in agreement with the well-known result for a continuous time random-walk model. The sensitivity of current and particle number density to the variation of experimentally controlled parameters is investigated in general, and the results applied to analyze selected experimental data.
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