Reactive lattice gas automata provide a microscopic approachto the dynamics
of spatially-distributed reacting systems. After introducing the subject within
the wider framework of lattice gas automata (LGA) as a microscopic approach to
the phenomenology of macroscopic systems, we describe the reactive LGA in terms
of a simple physical picture to show how an automaton can be constructed to
capture the essentials of a reactive molecular dynamics scheme. The statistical
mechanical theory of the automaton is then developed for diffusive transport
and for reactive processes, and a general algorithm is presented for reactive
LGA. The method is illustrated by considering applications to bistable and
excitable media, oscillatory behavior in reactive systems, chemical chaos and
pattern formation triggered by Turing bifurcations. The reactive lattice gas
scheme is contrasted with related cellular automaton methods and the paper
concludes with a discussion of future perspectives.Comment: to appear in PHYSICS REPORTS, 81 revtex pages; uuencoded gziped
postscript file; figures available from [email protected] or
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