7,067 research outputs found
Persistence of a Brownian particle in a Time Dependent Potential
We investigate the persistence probability of a Brownian particle in a
harmonic potential, which decays to zero at long times -- leading to an
unbounded motion of the Brownian particle. We consider two functional forms for
the decay of the confinement, an exponential and an algebraic decay. Analytical
calculations and numerical simulations show, that for the case of the
exponential relaxation, the dynamics of Brownian particle at short and long
times are independent of the parameters of the relaxation. On the contrary, for
the algebraic decay of the confinement, the dynamics at long times is
determined by the exponent of the decay. Finally, using the two-time
correlation function for the position of the Brownian particle, we construct
the persistence probability for the Brownian walker in such a scenario.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.
Maximum Distance Between the Leader and the Laggard for Three Brownian Walkers
We consider three independent Brownian walkers moving on a line. The process
terminates when the left-most walker (the `Leader') meets either of the other
two walkers. For arbitrary values of the diffusion constants D_1 (the Leader),
D_2 and D_3 of the three walkers, we compute the probability distribution
P(m|y_2,y_3) of the maximum distance m between the Leader and the current
right-most particle (the `Laggard') during the process, where y_2 and y_3 are
the initial distances between the leader and the other two walkers. The result
has, for large m, the form P(m|y_2,y_3) \sim A(y_2,y_3) m^{-\delta}, where
\delta = (2\pi-\theta)/(\pi-\theta) and \theta =
cos^{-1}(D_1/\sqrt{(D_1+D_2)(D_1+D_3)}. The amplitude A(y_2,y_3) is also
determined exactly
Blocking and Persistence in the Zero-Temperature Dynamics of Homogeneous and Disordered Ising Models
A ``persistence'' exponent theta has been extensively used to describe the
nonequilibrium dynamics of spin systems following a deep quench: for
zero-temperature homogeneous Ising models on the d-dimensional cubic lattice,
the fraction p(t) of spins not flipped by time t decays to zero like
t^[-theta(d)] for low d; for high d, p(t) may decay to p(infinity)>0, because
of ``blocking'' (but perhaps still like a power). What are the effects of
disorder or changes of lattice? We show that these can quite generally lead to
blocking (and convergence to a metastable configuration) even for low d, and
then present two examples --- one disordered and one homogeneous --- where p(t)
decays exponentially to p(infinity).Comment: 8 pages (LaTeX); to appear in Physical Review Letter
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