Quick search Find article
Quick search
Find article

Survival of a diffusing particle in an expanding cage

Alan J Bray and Richard Smith

Show affiliations


We consider a Brownian particle, with diffusion constant D, moving inside an expanding d-dimensional sphere whose surface is an absorbing boundary for the particle. The sphere has initial radius L0 and expands at a constant rate c. We calculate the joint probability density, p(r, t|r0), that the particle survives until time t, and is at a distance r from the centre of the sphere, given that it started at a distance r0 from the centre. The asymptotic (t) probability, Q, obtained by integrating over all final positions, that the particle survives, starting from the centre of the sphere, is given by Q = [4/Γ(ν + 1)λν+1]∑nbnexp [ − (αnν)2/λ], where λ = cL0/D, bn = (αnν)/[Jν+1nν)]2, ν = (d − 2)/2 and αnν is the nth positive zero of the Bessel function Jν(z). The cases d = 1 and d = 3 are especially simple, and may be solved elegantly using backward Fokker–Planck methods.


PACS

05.10.Gg Stochastic analysis methods (Fokker-Planck, Langevin, etc.)

02.50.Cw Probability theory

05.40.Jc Brownian motion

MSC

82C31 Stochastic methods (Fokker-Planck, Langevin, etc.) (See also 60H10)

62Mxx Inference from stochastic processes

Subjects

Computational physics

Statistical physics and nonlinear systems

Dates

Issue 36 (7 September 2007)

Received 8 May 2007, in final form 20 July 2007

Published 21 August 2007



  1. Survival of a diffusing particle in an expanding cage

    Alan J Bray and Richard Smith 2007 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 40 10965

  2. High-pressure micro-discharges in etching and deposition applications

    R Mohan Sankaran and K P Giapis 2003 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 36 2914

  3. Radiation effect on heat transfer in an electrically conducting fluid at a stretching surface with a uniform free stream

    Emad M AboEldahab 2000 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 33 3180

  4. Numerical Simulations of Slow Standing Waves in a Curved Solar Coronal Loop

    M. Selwa et al 2007 ApJ 668 L83

  5. Gaussian fluctuations in chaotic eigenstates

    Mark Srednicki and Frank Stiernelof 1996 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 29 5817

  6. Capillarity and dielectrophoresis of liquid deuterium

    T B Jones et al 2009 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 42 225505

  7. Cryogenic surgery

    W B Bald and J Fraser 1982 Rep. Prog. Phys. 45 1381

  8. Determining carotid artery pressure from scaled diameter waveforms: comparison and validation of calibration techniques in 2026 subjects

    S J Vermeersch et al 2008 Physiol. Meas. 29 1267

  9. Fluctuation microscopy: a probe of medium range order

    M M J Treacy et al 2005 Rep. Prog. Phys. 68 2899

  10. Fluctuation effects on microphase separation in a random copolymer Hamiltonian

    C D Sfatos et al 1994 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 27 L411

View by subject




Export








Please login to access our web services, or create an account if you don't yet have one.

You must have cookies enabled in your web browser to be able to login.

Username
Password

Forgotten your password? Get a new one here.