Target search kinetics for random walkers with memory

In this chapter, we consider the problem of a non-Markovian random walker (displaying memory effects) searching for a target. We review an approach that links the first passage statistics to the properties of trajectories followed by the random walker in the future of the first passage time. This approach holds in one and higher spatial dimensions, when the dynamics in the vicinity of the target is Gaussian, and it is applied to three paradigmatic target search problems: the search for a target in confinement, the search for a rarely reached configuration (rare event kinetics), or the search for a target in infinite space, for processes featuring stationary increments or transient aging. The theory gives access to the mean first passage time (when it exists) or to the behavior of the survival probability at long times, and agrees with the available exact results obtained perturbatively for examples of weakly non-Markovian processes. This general approach reveals that the characterization of the non-equilibrium state of the system at the instant of first passage is key to derive first-passage kinetics, and provides a new methodology, via the analysis of trajectories after the first-passage, to make it quantitative.

Olivier Bénichou, Thomas Guérin, Nicolas Levernier, Raphaël Voituriez · 2024