Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme

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DY: Fachverband Dynamik und Statistische Physik

DY 22: Statistical Physics (general)

DY 22.5: Talk

Wednesday, March 13, 2013, 16:00–16:15, H48

Levy flights search in potential — •Vladimir Palyulin, Alexei Chechkin, and Ralf Metzler — Chair for Theoretical Physics, Inst for Physics & Astronomy, University of Potsdam, 14476 Potsdam-Golm, Germany

Problem of target search has a long history. There are many theoretical and experimental works which discuss whether Levy flights, Brownian motion or intermittent search strategy is the most efficient way for a particle or predator to find the target. We introduce a new convenient measure of search efficiency and compute it for Brownian and Levy search with and without potential bias. This measure shows non-trivial behavior which depends on Levy flights exponent, initial distance of a particle from the target and drift velocity. Analytical and numerical results show that either Brownian or Levy flights can be efficient depending on the initial conditions. Cumulative probability to reach a target ever is also calculated. Analytical and numerical results are obtained from fractional Fokker-Planck equation and supported by Monte-Carlo simulations.