Brownian survival in a clusterized trapping medium

The survival problem for a Brownian particle moving among random traps is considered in the case where the traps are correlated in a particular fashion being gathered in clusters. It is assumed that the clusters are statistically identical and independent of each other and are distributed in space according to a Poisson law. Mathematically, such a trapping medium is described via a Poisson cluster point process. We prove that the particle's survival probability is decreased at all times as compared to the case of noncorrelated (Poissonian) traps, which implies the slowdown of the trapping process. It is shown that this effect may be interpreted as the manifestation of the trap 'attraction', thus supporting assertions on the qualitative influence of the trap 'interaction' on the trapping rate claimed earlier in the physical literature. The long-time survival asymptotics (of Donsker-Varadhan type) is also derived. By way of appendix, FKG inequalities for certain functionals are proven and the limiting distribution for a Poisson cluster process, under clusters' scaling, is determined. (orig.)Available from TIB Hannover: RO 5073(646) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEDEGerman