paper

First order transition for the optimal search time of Lévy flights with resetting

arXiv:1409.1733 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.220602

Abstract

We study analytically an intermittent search process in one dimension. There is an immobile target at the origin and a searcher undergoes a discrete time jump process starting at , where successive jumps are drawn independently from an arbitrary jump distribution . In addition, with a probability the position of the searcher is reset to its initial position . The efficiency of the search strategy is characterized by the mean time to find the target, i.e., the mean first passage time (MFPT) to the origin. For arbitrary jump distribution , initial position and resetting probability , we compute analytically the MFPT. For the heavy-tailed Lévy stable jump distribution characterized by the Lévy index , we show that, for any given , the MFPT has a global minimum in the plane at . We find a remarkable first-order phase transition as crosses a critical value at which the optimal parameters change discontinuously. Our analytical results are in good agreement with numerical simulations.

5 pages, 6 figures

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