English

First passage times and distances along critical curves

Statistical Mechanics 2007-11-13 v2

Abstract

We propose a model for anomalous transport in inhomogeneous environments, such as fractured rocks, in which particles move only along pre-existing self-similar curves (cracks). The stochastic Loewner equation is used to efficiently generate such curves with tunable fractal dimension dfd_f. We numerically compute the probability of first passage (in length or time) from one point on the edge of the semi-infinite plane to any point on the semi-circle of radius RR. The scaled probability distributions have a variance which increases with dfd_f, a non-monotonic skewness, and tails that decay faster than a simple exponential. The latter is in sharp contrast to predictions based on fractional dynamics and provides an experimental signature for our model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0705.1474,
  title  = {First passage times and distances along critical curves},
  author = {A. Zoia and Y. Kantor and M. Kardar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0705.1474},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

5 pages, 5 figures