Random walks in noninteger dimension
Creators
- 1. Department of Physics, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri 63130-4899 (United States)
- 2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, Mississippi 39406-5046 (United States)
Description
One can define a random walk on a hypercubic lattice in a space of integer dimension D. For such a process formulas can be derived that express the probability of certain events, such as the chance of returning to the origin after a given number of time steps. These formulas are physically meaningful for integer values of D. However, these formulas are unacceptable as probabilities when continued to noninteger D because they give values that can be greater than 1 or less than 0. In this paper a different kind of random walk is proposed which gives acceptable probabilities for all real values of D. This D-dimensional random walk is defined on a rotationally symmetric geometry consisting of concentric spheres. The exact result is given for the probability of returning to the origin for all values of D in terms of the Riemann zeta function. This result has a number-theoretic interpretation
Additional details
Publishing Information
- Journal Title
- Journal of Mathematical Physics (New York)
- Journal Volume
- 35
- Journal Issue
- 1
- Journal Page Range
- p. 368-388.
- ISSN
- 0022-2488
- CODEN
- JMAPAQ
INIS
- Country of Publication
- United States
- Country of Input or Organization
- United States
- INIS RN
- 25041166
- Subject category
- S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; S72: PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS;
- Descriptors DEI
- CUBIC LATTICES; GREEN FUNCTION; LATTICE FIELD THEORY; MANY-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS; PERTURBATION THEORY; PROBABILITY; SPHERES; STOCHASTIC PROCESSES
- Descriptors DEC
- CONSTRUCTIVE FIELD THEORY; CRYSTAL LATTICES; CRYSTAL STRUCTURE; FIELD THEORIES; FUNCTIONS; QUANTUM FIELD THEORY