Dispersion in porous media, continuous-time random walks, and percolation

A promising approach to the modeling of anomalous (non-Gaussian) dispersion in flow through heterogeneous porous media is the continuous-time random walk (CTRW) method. In such a formula on the waiting time distribution ψ(t) is usually assumed to be given by ψ(t)∼t-1-α, with α fitted to the experimental data. The exponent α is also related to the power-law growth of the mean-square displacement of the solute with the time t ∼ tζ. Invoking percolation and using a scaling analysis, we relate α to the geometrical exponents of percolation (ν, β, and βB) as well as the exponents μ and e that characterize the power-law behavior of the effective conductivity and permeability of porous media near the percolation threshold. We then explain the cause of the nonuniversality of α in terms of the nonuniversality of μ and e in continuum systems, and in percolation models with long-range correlations, and propose bounds for it. The results are consistent with the experimental data, both at the laboratory and field scales.