The kinetics of a diffusing particle near a reversible trap may be described by an extension of the Feynman-Kac equation to the case of reversible binding, which can occur within a finite reaction sphere. We obtain the Green's function solution for the Laplace transform of this equation when the particle is initially either bound or unbound. We study the solution in the time-domain by either inverting the Laplace transform numerically or propagating the partial differential equation in the time-domain. We show that integrals of this solution over the reaction sphere agree with previously obtained solutions.

This work compares various models for geminate reversible diffusion influenced reactions. The commonly utilized contact reactivity model (an extension of the Collins-Kimball radiation boundary condition) is augmented here by a volume reactivity model, which extends the celebrated Feynman-Kac equation for irreversible depletion within a reaction sphere. We obtain the exact analytic solution in Laplace space for an initially bound pair, which can dissociate, diffuse or undergo "sticky" recombination. We show that the same expression for the binding probability holds also for "mixed" reaction products. Two different derivations are pursued, yielding seemingly different expressions, which nevertheless coincide numerically. These binding probabilities and their Laplace transforms are compared graphically with those from the contact reactivity model and a previously suggested coarse grained approximation. Mathematically, all these Laplace transforms conform to a single generic equation, in which different reactionless Green's functions, g(s), are incorporated. In most of parameter space the sensitivity to g(s) is not large, so that the binding probabilities for the volume and contact reactivity models are rather similar.

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The natural extension and reformulation of the unified theory (UT) proposed here makes it integro-differential and capable of describing the distant quenching of excitation by electron transfer, accompanied with contact but reversible exciplex formation. The numerical solution of the new UT equations allows specifying the kinetics of the fluorescence quenching and exciplex association/dissociation as well as those reactions' quantum yields. It was demonstrated that the distant electron transfer in either the normal or inverted Marcus regions screens the contact reaction of exciplex formation, especially at slow diffusion.

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