Random Walks and Random Environments: Random environments


Book Description

This is the second volume of a two-volume work devoted to probability theory in physical chemistry, and engineering. Rather than dealing explicitly with the idea of an ongoing random walk, with each chaotic step taking place at fixed time intervals, this volume addresses random environments-- models in which the disorder is frozen in space. It begins with an introduction to the geometry of random environments, emphasizing Bernoulli percolation models. The scope of the investigation then widens as we ask how structural disorder affects the transport process. The final chapters confront the interplay of two different forms of randomness; spatial randomness frozen into the environment and temporal randomness associated with the choices for next steps made by a random walker. The book ends with a discussion of "the ant in the labyrinth" problems and an extensive bibliography that, along with the rest of the material, will be of value to researchers in physics, mathematics, and chemical engineering.




Lectures on Probability Theory and Statistics


Book Description

This volume contains lectures given at the 31st Probability Summer School in Saint-Flour (July 8-25, 2001). Simon Tavaré’s lectures serve as an introduction to the coalescent, and to inference for ancestral processes in population genetics. The stochastic computation methods described include rejection methods, importance sampling, Markov chain Monte Carlo, and approximate Bayesian methods. Ofer Zeitouni’s course on "Random Walks in Random Environment" presents systematically the tools that have been introduced to study the model. A fairly complete description of available results in dimension 1 is given. For higher dimension, the basic techniques and a discussion of some of the available results are provided. The contribution also includes an updated annotated bibliography and suggestions for further reading. Olivier Catoni's course appears separately.




Directed Polymers in Random Environments


Book Description

Analyzing the phase transition from diffusive to localized behavior in a model of directed polymers in a random environment, this volume places particular emphasis on the localization phenomenon. The main questionis: What does the path of a random walk look like if rewards and penalties are spatially randomly distributed?This model, which provides a simplified version of stretched elastic chains pinned by random impurities, has attracted much research activity, but it (and its relatives) still holds many secrets, especially in high dimensions. It has non-gaussian scaling limits and it belongs to the so-called KPZ universality class when the space is one-dimensional. Adopting a Gibbsian approach, using general and powerful tools from probability theory, the discrete model is studied in full generality. Presenting the state-of-the art from different perspectives, and written in the form of a first course on the subject, this monograph is aimed at researchers in probability or statistical physics, but is also accessible to masters and Ph.D. students.




asymptotic analysis of random walks


Book Description

A comprehensive monograph presenting a unified systematic exposition of the large deviations theory for heavy-tailed random walks.




Random Walk: A Modern Introduction


Book Description

Random walks are stochastic processes formed by successive summation of independent, identically distributed random variables and are one of the most studied topics in probability theory. This contemporary introduction evolved from courses taught at Cornell University and the University of Chicago by the first author, who is one of the most highly regarded researchers in the field of stochastic processes. This text meets the need for a modern reference to the detailed properties of an important class of random walks on the integer lattice. It is suitable for probabilists, mathematicians working in related fields, and for researchers in other disciplines who use random walks in modeling.




Random Walks and Electric Networks


Book Description

Probability theory, like much of mathematics, is indebted to physics as a source of problems and intuition for solving these problems. Unfortunately, the level of abstraction of current mathematics often makes it difficult for anyone but an expert to appreciate this fact. Random Walks and electric networks looks at the interplay of physics and mathematics in terms of an example—the relation between elementary electric network theory and random walks —where the mathematics involved is at the college level.




Branching Random Walks


Book Description

Providing an elementary introduction to branching random walks, the main focus of these lecture notes is on the asymptotic properties of one-dimensional discrete-time supercritical branching random walks, and in particular, on extreme positions in each generation, as well as the evolution of these positions over time. Starting with the simple case of Galton-Watson trees, the text primarily concentrates on exploiting, in various contexts, the spinal structure of branching random walks. The notes end with some applications to biased random walks on trees.




Random Walks in Biology


Book Description

This book is a lucid, straightforward introduction to the concepts and techniques of statistical physics that students of biology, biochemistry, and biophysics must know. It provides a sound basis for understanding random motions of molecules, subcellular particles, or cells, or of processes that depend on such motion or are markedly affected by it. Readers do not need to understand thermodynamics in order to acquire a knowledge of the physics involved in diffusion, sedimentation, electrophoresis, chromatography, and cell motility--subjects that become lively and immediate when the author discusses them in terms of random walks of individual particles.




Discrete Time Branching Processes in Random Environment


Book Description

Branching processes are stochastic processes which represent the reproduction of particles, such as individuals within a population, and thereby model demographic stochasticity. In branching processes in random environment (BPREs), additional environmental stochasticity is incorporated, meaning that the conditions of reproduction may vary in a random fashion from one generation to the next. This book offers an introduction to the basics of BPREs and then presents the cases of critical and subcritical processes in detail, the latter dividing into weakly, intermediate, and strongly subcritical regimes.




Markov Random Flights


Book Description

Markov Random Flights is the first systematic presentation of the theory of Markov random flights in the Euclidean spaces of different dimensions. Markov random flights is a stochastic dynamic system subject to the control of an external Poisson process and represented by the stochastic motion of a particle that moves at constant finite speed and changes its direction at random Poisson time instants. The initial (and each new) direction is taken at random according to some probability distribution on the unit sphere. Such stochastic motion is the basic model for describing many real finite-velocity transport phenomena arising in statistical physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science and financial markets. Markov random flights acts as an effective tool for modelling the slow and super-slow diffusion processes arising in various fields of science and technology. Features: Provides the first systematic presentation of the theory of Markov random flights in the Euclidean spaces of different dimensions. Suitable for graduate students and specialists and professionals in applied areas. Introduces a new unified approach based on the powerful methods of mathematical analysis, such as integral transforms, generalized, hypergeometric and special functions. Author Alexander D. Kolesnik is a professor, Head of Laboratory (2015–2019) and principal researcher (since 2020) at the Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science, Kishinev (Chișinău), Moldova. He graduated from Moldova State University in 1980 and earned his PhD from the Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kiev in 1991. He also earned a PhD Habilitation in mathematics and physics with specialization in stochastic processes, probability and statistics conferred by the Specialized Council at the Institute of Mathematics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and confirmed by the Supreme Attestation Commission of Ukraine in 2010. His research interests include: probability and statistics, stochastic processes, random evolutions, stochastic dynamic systems, random flights, diffusion processes, transport processes, random walks, stochastic processes in random environments, partial differential equations in stochastic models, statistical physics and wave processes. Dr. Kolesnik has published more than 70 scientific publications, mostly in high-standard international journals and a monograph. He has also acted as external referee for many outstanding international journals in mathematics and physics, being awarded by the "Certificate of Outstanding Contribution in Reviewing" from the journal "Stochastic Processes and their Applications." He was the visiting professor and scholarship holder at universities in Italy and Germany and member of the Board of Global Advisors of the International Federation of Nonlinear Analysts (IFNA), United States of America.