Statement
The equation is usually written as:
where ϕ(r, t) is the density of the diffusing material at location r and time t and D(ϕ, r) is the collective diffusion coefficient for density ϕ at location r; and ∇ represents the vector differential operator del. If the diffusion coefficient depends on the density then the equation is nonlinear, otherwise it is linear.
More generally, when D is a symmetric positive definite matrix, the equation describes anisotropic diffusion, which is written (for three dimensional diffusion) as:
If D is constant, then the equation reduces to the following linear differential equation:
also called the heat equation.
Read more about this topic: Diffusion Equation
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