Observation-Time-Induced Crossover in Driven Anomalous Transport

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Shirataki, Masahiro, Akimoto, Takuma
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866912967493156864
author Shirataki, Masahiro
Akimoto, Takuma
author_facet Shirataki, Masahiro
Akimoto, Takuma
contents We investigate how a weak constant force becomes detectable through fluctuations in anomalous transport in strongly heterogeneous media. Rather than focusing on the mean drift, we show that the key signature of the force appears in the variance of the particle displacement. As representative models, we study a biased continuous-time random walk (CTRW) with nearest-neighbor jumps and a biased quenched trap model (QTM) with a power-law waiting-time tail. By analysing the force dependence of the displacement variance, we quantify how fluctuations respond to weak driving. We find that for $α<2$, the response exhibits an observation-time-induced crossover: at fixed bias, the variance initially follows its unbiased scaling and only at later times crosses over to a force-dominated nonequilibrium regime. Equivalently, at fixed observation time $t$, there exists a threshold bias $\varepsilon_c(t)$ separating an apparently equilibrium-like regime from a detectable nonequilibrium response. This threshold decreases with increasing $t$, implying that weaker forces become observable over longer measurement windows. Quenched disorder further lowers the detection threshold compared with CTRW, and the crossover reflects a competition between the finite observation time and the intrinsic relaxation time of the driven heterogeneous system.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_14685
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Observation-Time-Induced Crossover in Driven Anomalous Transport
Shirataki, Masahiro
Akimoto, Takuma
Statistical Mechanics
We investigate how a weak constant force becomes detectable through fluctuations in anomalous transport in strongly heterogeneous media. Rather than focusing on the mean drift, we show that the key signature of the force appears in the variance of the particle displacement. As representative models, we study a biased continuous-time random walk (CTRW) with nearest-neighbor jumps and a biased quenched trap model (QTM) with a power-law waiting-time tail. By analysing the force dependence of the displacement variance, we quantify how fluctuations respond to weak driving. We find that for $α<2$, the response exhibits an observation-time-induced crossover: at fixed bias, the variance initially follows its unbiased scaling and only at later times crosses over to a force-dominated nonequilibrium regime. Equivalently, at fixed observation time $t$, there exists a threshold bias $\varepsilon_c(t)$ separating an apparently equilibrium-like regime from a detectable nonequilibrium response. This threshold decreases with increasing $t$, implying that weaker forces become observable over longer measurement windows. Quenched disorder further lowers the detection threshold compared with CTRW, and the crossover reflects a competition between the finite observation time and the intrinsic relaxation time of the driven heterogeneous system.
title Observation-Time-Induced Crossover in Driven Anomalous Transport
topic Statistical Mechanics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.14685