English

Gradual Diffusive Capture: Slow Death by Many Mosquito Bites

Statistical Mechanics 2014-11-11 v3 Probability

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a single diffusing particle (a "man") with diffusivity DMD_M that is attacked by another diffusing particle (a "mosquito") with fixed diffusivity DmD_m. Each time the mosquito meets and bites the man, the diffusivity of the man is reduced by a fixed amount, while the diffusivity of the mosquito is unchanged. The mosquito is also displaced by a small distance ±a\pm a with respect to the man after each encounter. The man is defined as dead when DMD_M reaches zero. At the moment when the man dies, his probability distribution of displacements xx is given by a Cauchy form, which asymptotically decays as x2x^{-2}, while the distribution of times tt when the man dies asymptotically decays as t3/2t^{-3/2}, which has the same form as the one-dimensional first-passage probability.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1409.2907,
  title  = {Gradual Diffusive Capture: Slow Death by Many Mosquito Bites},
  author = {S. Redner and O. Bénichou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1409.2907},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

10 pages, 2 figure, IOP format, Version 2 contains minor corrections

R2 v1 2026-06-22T05:52:56.252Z