Diffusive Search with spatially dependent Resetting

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a stochastic search model with spatially dependent resetting, providing growth rate estimates for the expected search time and conditions for finiteness based on the resetting rate function.

Contribution

It offers a quantitative analysis of how the asymptotic behavior of the resetting rate affects the expected search time in a diffusive search model.

Findings

Logarithmic growth of expected search time with respect to target position for polynomial resetting rates.

Identification of a phase transition at a specific decay rate of the resetting function where expected time becomes infinite.

Explicit growth rate formulas depending on the asymptotic form of the resetting rate function.

Abstract

Consider a stochastic search model with resetting for an unknown stationary target $a\in\mathbb{R}$ with known distribution $\mu$. The searcher begins at the origin and performs Brownian motion with diffusion constant $D$. The searcher is also armed with an exponential clock with spatially dependent rate $r$, so that if it has failed to locate the target by the time the clock rings, then its position is reset to the origin and it continues its search anew from there. Denote the position of the searcher at time $t$ by $X(t)$. Let $E_0^{(r)}$ denote expectations for the process $X(\cdot)$. The search ends at time $T_a=\inf\{t\ge0:X(t)=a\}$. The expected time of the search is then $\int_{\mathbb{R}}(E_0^{(r)}T_a)\thinspace\mu(da)$. Ideally, one would like to minimize this over all resetting rates $r$. We obtain quantitative growth rates for $E_0^{(r)}T_a$ as a function of $a$ in terms of the asymptotic behavior of the rate function $r$, and also a rather precise dichotomy on the asymptotic behavior of the resetting function $r$ to determine whether $E_0^{(r)}T_a$ is finite or infinite. We show generically that if $r(x)$ is on the order $|x|^{2l}$, with $l>-1$, then $\log E_0^{(r)}T_a$ is on the order $|a|^{l+1}$; in particular, the smaller the asymptotic size of $r$, the smaller the asymptotic growth rate of $E_0^{(r)}T_a$. The asymptotic growth rate of $E_0^{(r)}T_a$ continues to decrease when $r(x)\sim \frac{D\lambda}{x^2}$ with $\lambda>1$; now the growth rate of $E_0^{(r)}T_a$ is more or less on the order $|a|^{\frac{1+\sqrt{1+8\lambda}}2}$. However, if $\lambda=1$, then $E_0^{(r)}T_a=\infty$, for $a\neq0$.