Multiparticle trapping problem in the half-line

A variation of Rosenstock's trapping model in which $N$ independent random walkers are all initially placed upon a site of a one-dimensional lattice in the presence of a {\em one-sided} random distribution (with probability $c$) of absorbing traps is investigated. The probability (survival probability) $\Phi_N(t)$ that no random walker is trapped by time $t$ for $N \gg 1$ is calculated by using the extended Rosenstock approximation. This requires the evaluation of the moments of the number $S_N(t)$ of distinct sites visited in a {\em given} direction up to time $t$ by $N$ independent random walkers. The Rosenstock approximation improves when $N$ increases, working well in the range $Dt\ln^2(1-c) \ll \ln N$, $D$ being the diffusion constant. The moments of the time (lifetime) before any trapping event occurs are calculated asymptotically, too. The agreement with numerical results is excellent.Comment: 11 pages (RevTex), 6 figures (eps). To be published in Physica

Francisco Salva's Electric Telegraph

This article takes a look at the life and accomplishments of Francisco Salva of Spain, including his work with an electric telegraph system. The author states that information herein is based on the original report and some practical demonstrations that Salva presented to the Barcelona Academy of Sciences in 1804

Survival probability and order statistics of diffusion on disordered media

We investigate the first passage time t_{j,N} to a given chemical or Euclidean distance of the first j of a set of N>>1 independent random walkers all initially placed on a site of a disordered medium. To solve this order-statistics problem we assume that, for short times, the survival probability (the probability that a single random walker is not absorbed by a hyperspherical surface during some time interval) decays for disordered media in the same way as for Euclidean and some class of deterministic fractal lattices. This conjecture is checked by simulation on the incipient percolation aggregate embedded in two dimensions. Arbitrary moments of t_{j,N} are expressed in terms of an asymptotic series in powers of 1/ln N which is formally identical to those found for Euclidean and (some class of) deterministic fractal lattices. The agreement of the asymptotic expressions with simulation results for the two-dimensional percolation aggregate is good when the boundary is defined in terms of the chemical distance. The agreement worsens slightly when the Euclidean distance is used.Comment: 8 pages including 9 figure

Number of distinct sites visited by N random walkers on a Euclidean lattice

The evaluation of the average number S_N(t) of distinct sites visited up to time t by N independent random walkers all starting from the same origin on an Euclidean lattice is addressed. We find that, for the nontrivial time regime and for large N, S_N(t) \approx \hat S_N(t) (1-\Delta), where \hat S_N(t) is the volume of a hypersphere of radius (4Dt \ln N)^{1/2}, \Delta={1/2}\sum_{n=1}^\infty \ln^{-n} N \sum_{m=0}^n s_m^{(n)} \ln^{m} \ln N, d is the dimension of the lattice, and the coefficients s_m^{(n)} depend on the dimension and time. The first three terms of these series are calculated explicitly and the resulting expressions are compared with other approximations and with simulation results for dimensions 1, 2, and 3. Some implications of these results on the geometry of the set of visited sites are discussed.Comment: 15 pages (RevTex), 4 figures (eps); to appear in Phys. Rev.

Some exact results for the trapping of subdiffusive particles in one dimension

We study a generalization of the standard trapping problem of random walk theory in which particles move subdiffusively on a one-dimensional lattice. We consider the cases in which the lattice is filled with a one-sided and a two-sided random distribution of static absorbing traps with concentration c. The survival probability Phi(t) that the random walker is not trapped by time t is obtained exactly in both versions of the problem through a fractional diffusion approach. Comparison with simulation results is madeComment: 15 pages, 2 figure

Properties of the reaction front in a reaction-subdiffusion process

We study the reaction front for the process $A+B\to C$ in which the reagents move subdiffusively. We propose a fractional reaction-subdiffusion equation in which both the motion and the reaction terms are affected by the subdiffusive character of the process. Scaling solutions to these equations are presented and compared with those of a direct numerical integration of the equations. We find that for reactants whose mean square displacement varies sublinearly with time as $\sim t^\gamma$, the scaling behaviors of the reaction front can be recovered from those of the corresponding diffusive problem with the substitution $t\to t^\gamma$Comment: Errata corrected, one reference update