English

Recurrence and Polya number of general one-dimensional random walks

Mathematical Physics 2015-05-20 v1 Combinatorics math.MP

Abstract

The recurrence properties of random walks can be characterized by P\'{o}lya number, i.e., the probability that the walker has returned to the origin at least once. In this paper, we consider recurrence properties for a general 1D random walk on a line, in which at each time step the walker can move to the left or right with probabilities ll and rr, or remain at the same position with probability oo (l+r+o=1l+r+o=1). We calculate P\'{o}lya number PP of this model and find a simple expression for PP as, P=1ΔP=1-\Delta, where Δ\Delta is the absolute difference of ll and rr (Δ=lr\Delta=|l-r|). We prove this rigorous expression by the method of creative telescoping, and our result suggests that the walk is recurrent if and only if the left-moving probability ll equals to the right-moving probability rr.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1010.2014,
  title  = {Recurrence and Polya number of general one-dimensional random walks},
  author = {Xiao-Kun Zhang and Jing Wan and Jing-Ju Lu and Xin-Ping Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1010.2014},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

3 page short paper

R2 v1 2026-06-21T16:26:31.686Z