Analysis of cloud chamber measurements of gas phase polymerization

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Abstract
This paper provides a summary of some of the principal mathematical and theoretical tools for the analysis of experimental data accumulated in the course of the study of true gas phase chain polymerization, using nucleation and growth (in cloud chambers) of liquid monomer drops for detection. Included in the discussion are (1) a theory for the nucleation of supersaturated monomer vapors by single polymer molecules formed from the same monomer, (2) the development of the appropriate stochastics for the growth and transport of the polymers in a variety of experiments involving different configurations of space and time, (3) the development of mathematical methods for determining, from the data, rate constants and critical (for nucleation) polymer sizes, and (4) the development of methods for the extraction of mechanistic information from the noise (fluctuating rate) in the reaction involving only a small number of product molecules. All of these ideas are used in the treatment of experiments reported in the following and subsequent papers.