First Passage Time for Many Particle Diffusion in Space-Time Random Environments

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hass, Jacob B., Corwin, Ivan, Corwin, Eric I.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Hass, Jacob B.
Corwin, Ivan
Corwin, Eric I.
author_facet Hass, Jacob B.
Corwin, Ivan
Corwin, Eric I.
contents The first passage time for a single diffusing particle has been studied extensively, but the first passage time of a system of many diffusing particles, as is often the case in physical systems, has received little attention until recently. We consider two models for many particle diffusion -- one treats each particle as independent simple random walkers while the other treats them as coupled to a common space-time random forcing field that biases particles nearby in space and time in similar ways. The first passage time of a single diffusing particle under both of these models show the same statistics and scaling behavior. However, for many particle diffusions, the first passage time among all particles (the `extreme first passage time') is very different between the two models, effected in the latter case by the randomness of the common forcing field. We develop an asymptotic (in the number of particles and location where first passage is being probed) theoretical framework to separate out the impact of the random environment with that of sampling trajectories within it. We identify a new power-law describing the impact to the extreme first passage time variance of the environment. Through numerical simulations we verify that the predictions from this asymptotic theory hold even for systems with widely varying numbers of particles, all the way down to 100 particles. This shows that measurements of the extreme first passage time for many-particle diffusions provide an indirect measurement of the underlying environment in which the diffusion is occurring.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2308_01267
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle First Passage Time for Many Particle Diffusion in Space-Time Random Environments
Hass, Jacob B.
Corwin, Ivan
Corwin, Eric I.
Statistical Mechanics
The first passage time for a single diffusing particle has been studied extensively, but the first passage time of a system of many diffusing particles, as is often the case in physical systems, has received little attention until recently. We consider two models for many particle diffusion -- one treats each particle as independent simple random walkers while the other treats them as coupled to a common space-time random forcing field that biases particles nearby in space and time in similar ways. The first passage time of a single diffusing particle under both of these models show the same statistics and scaling behavior. However, for many particle diffusions, the first passage time among all particles (the `extreme first passage time') is very different between the two models, effected in the latter case by the randomness of the common forcing field. We develop an asymptotic (in the number of particles and location where first passage is being probed) theoretical framework to separate out the impact of the random environment with that of sampling trajectories within it. We identify a new power-law describing the impact to the extreme first passage time variance of the environment. Through numerical simulations we verify that the predictions from this asymptotic theory hold even for systems with widely varying numbers of particles, all the way down to 100 particles. This shows that measurements of the extreme first passage time for many-particle diffusions provide an indirect measurement of the underlying environment in which the diffusion is occurring.
title First Passage Time for Many Particle Diffusion in Space-Time Random Environments
topic Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.01267