Existence, decay time and light yield for a reaction-diffusion-drift equation in the continuum physics of scintillators

Abstract

A scintillator is a material which converts incoming ionizing energy into visible light. This conversion process, which is a strongly nonlinear one, can be described by a Reaction-Diffusion-Drift equation we obtain from a model of continua with microstructure endowed with a suitable thermodynamics. For such an equation it can be show the global existence of renormalizable and weak solutions, and the solutions exponential decay estimates can be given; moreover we give also a mathematical definition for the light yield which is a measure of scintillation efficiency.