English

Relativistic Weierstrass random walks

Statistical Mechanics 2010-08-30 v2

Abstract

The Weierstrass random walk is a paradigmatic Markov chain giving rise to a L\'evy-type superdiffusive behavior. It is well known that Special Relativity prevents the arbitrarily high velocities necessary to establish a superdiffusive behavior in any process occurring in Minkowski spacetime, implying, in particular, that any relativistic Markov chain describing spacetime phenomena must be essentially Gaussian. Here, we introduce a simple relativistic extension of the Weierstrass random walk and show that there must exist a transition time tct_c delimiting two qualitative distinct dynamical regimes: the (non-relativistic) superdiffusive L\'evy flights, for t<tc t < t_c, and the usual (relativistic) Gaussian diffusion, for t>tct>t_c. Implications of this crossover between different diffusion regimes are discussed for some explicit examples. The study of such an explicit and simple Markov chain can shed some light on several results obtained in much more involved contexts.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1007.3314,
  title  = {Relativistic Weierstrass random walks},
  author = {Alberto Saa and Roberto Venegeroles},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.3314},
  year   = {2010}
}

Comments

5 pages, final version to appear in PRE

R2 v1 2026-06-21T15:50:11.509Z