0000000000286385
AUTHOR
Raffaella Burioni
Scattering lengths and universality in superdiffusive L\'evy materials
We study the effects of scattering lengths on L\'evy walks in quenched one-dimensional random and fractal quasi-lattices, with scatterers spaced according to a long-tailed distribution. By analyzing the scaling properties of the random-walk probability distribution, we show that the effect of the varying scattering length can be reabsorbed in the multiplicative coefficient of the scaling length. This leads to a superscaling behavior, where the dynamical exponents and also the scaling functions do not depend on the value of the scattering length. Within the scaling framework, we obtain an exact expression for the multiplicative coefficient as a function of the scattering length both in the a…
Epidemic spreading and aging in temporal networks with memory
Time-varying network topologies can deeply influence dynamical processes mediated by them. Memory effects in the pattern of interactions among individuals are also known to affect how diffusive and spreading phenomena take place. In this paper we analyze the combined effect of these two ingredients on epidemic dynamics on networks. We study the susceptible-infected-susceptible (SIS) and the susceptible-infected-removed (SIR) models on the recently introduced activity-driven networks with memory. By means of an activity-based mean-field approach we derive, in the long time limit, analytical predictions for the epidemic threshold as a function of the parameters describing the distribution of …
Collective behaviours: from biochemical kinetics to electronic circuits
In this work we aim to highlight a close analogy between cooperative behaviors in chemical kinetics and cybernetics; this is realized by using a common language for their description, that is mean-field statistical mechanics. First, we perform a one-to-one mapping between paradigmatic behaviors in chemical kinetics (i.e., non-cooperative, cooperative, ultra-sensitive, anti-cooperative) and in mean-field statistical mechanics (i.e., paramagnetic, high and low temperature ferromagnetic, anti-ferromagnetic). Interestingly, the statistical mechanics approach allows a unified, broad theory for all scenarios and, in particular, Michaelis-Menten, Hill and Adair equations are consistently recovered…
Lévy-type diffusion on one-dimensional directed Cantor graphs.
L\'evy-type walks with correlated jumps, induced by the topology of the medium, are studied on a class of one-dimensional deterministic graphs built from generalized Cantor and Smith-Volterra-Cantor sets. The particle performs a standard random walk on the sets but is also allowed to move ballistically throughout the empty regions. Using scaling relations and the mapping onto the electric network problem, we obtain the exact values of the scaling exponents for the asymptotic return probability, the resistivity and the mean square displacement as a function of the topological parameters of the sets. Interestingly, the systems undergoes a transition from superdiffusive to diffusive behavior a…
Active and inactive quarantine in epidemic spreading on adaptive activity-driven networks
We consider an epidemic process on adaptive activity-driven temporal networks, with adaptive behaviour modelled as a change in activity and attractiveness due to infection. By using a mean-field approach, we derive an analytical estimate of the epidemic threshold for SIS and SIR epidemic models for a general adaptive strategy, which strongly depends on the correlations between activity and attractiveness in the susceptible and infected states. We focus on strong social distancing, implementing two types of quarantine inspired by recent real case studies: an active quarantine, in which the population compensates the loss of links rewiring the ineffective connections towards non-quarantining …
Lévy walks and scaling in quenched disordered media.
We study L\'evy walks in quenched disordered one-dimensional media, with scatterers spaced according to a long-tailed distribution. By analyzing the scaling relations for the random-walk probability and for the resistivity in the equivalent electric problem, we obtain the asymptotic behavior of the mean square displacement as a function of the exponent characterizing the scatterers distribution. We demonstrate that in quenched media different average procedures can display different asymptotic behavior. In particular, we estimate the moments of the displacement averaged over processes starting from scattering sites, in analogy with recent experiments. Our results are compared with numerical…
Rare events and scaling properties in field-induced anomalous dynamics
We show that, in a broad class of continuous time random walks (CTRW), a small external field can turn diffusion from standard into anomalous. We illustrate our findings in a CTRW with trapping, a prototype of subdiffusion in disordered and glassy materials, and in the L\'evy walk process, which describes superdiffusion within inhomogeneous media. For both models, in the presence of an external field, rare events induce a singular behavior in the originally Gaussian displacements distribution, giving rise to power-law tails. Remarkably, in the subdiffusive CTRW, the combined effect of highly fluctuating waiting times and of a drift yields a non-Gaussian distribution characterized by long sp…
Quantum Criticality in a Bosonic Josephson Junction
In this paper we consider a bosonic Josephson junction described by a two-mode Bose-Hubbard model, and we thoroughly analyze a quantum phase transition occurring in the system in the limit of infinite bosonic population. We discuss the relation between this quantum phase transition and the dynamical bifurcation occurring in the spectrum of the Discrete Self Trapping equations describing the system at the semiclassical level. In particular, we identify five regimes depending on the strength of the effective interaction among bosons, and study the finite-size effects arising from the finiteness of the bosonic population. We devote a special attention to the critical regime which reduces to th…
Diffusive thermal dynamics for the spin-S Ising ferromagnet
We introduce an alternative thermal diffusive dynamics for the spin-S Ising ferromagnet realized by means of a random walker. The latter hops across the sites of the lattice and flips the relevant spins according to a probability depending on both the local magnetic arrangement and the temperature. The random walker, intended to model a diffusing excitation, interacts with the lattice so that it is biased towards those sites where it can achieve an energy gain. In order to adapt our algorithm to systems made up of arbitrary spins, some non trivial generalizations are implied. In particular, we will apply the new dynamics to two-dimensional spin-1/2 and spin-1 systems analyzing their relaxat…
Effective target arrangement in a deterministic scale-free graph
We study the random walk problem on a deterministic scale-free network, in the presence of a set of static, identical targets; due to the strong inhomogeneity of the underlying structure the mean first-passage time (MFPT), meant as a measure of transport efficiency, is expected to depend sensitively on the position of targets. We consider several spatial arrangements for targets and we calculate, mainly rigorously, the related MFPT, where the average is taken over all possible starting points and over all possible paths. For all the cases studied, the MFPT asymptotically scales like N^{theta}, being N the volume of the substrate and theta ranging from (1 - log 2/log3), for central target(s)…
Critical dynamics of long range models on Dynamical L\'evy Lattices
We investigate critical equilibrium and out of equilibrium properties of a ferromagnetic Ising model in one and two dimension in the presence of long range interactions, $J_{ij}\propto r^{-(d+\sigma)}$. We implement a novel local dynamics on a dynamical L\'evy lattice, that correctly reproduces the static critical exponents known in the literature, as a function of the interaction parameter $\sigma$. Due to its locality the algorithm can be applied to investigate dynamical properties, of both discrete and continuous long range models. We consider the relaxation time at the critical temperature and we measure the dynamical exponent $z$ as a function of the decay parameter $\sigma$, highlight…
A Diffusive Strategic Dynamics for Social Systems
We propose a model for the dynamics of a social system, which includes diffusive effects and a biased rule for spin-flips, reproducing the effect of strategic choices. This model is able to mimic some phenomena taking place during marketing or political campaigns. Using a cost function based on the Ising model defined on the typical quenched interaction environments for social systems (Erdos-Renyi graph, small-world and scale-free networks), we find, by numerical simulations, that a stable stationary state is reached, and we compare the final state to the one obtained with standard dynamics, by means of total magnetization and magnetic susceptibility. Our results show that the diffusive str…
Transport and Scaling in Quenched 2D and 3D L\'evy Quasicrystals
We consider correlated L\'evy walks on a class of two- and three-dimensional deterministic self-similar structures, with correlation between steps induced by the geometrical distribution of regions, featuring different diffusion properties. We introduce a geometric parameter $\alpha$, playing a role analogous to the exponent characterizing the step-length distribution in random systems. By a {\it single-long jump} approximation, we analytically determine the long-time asymptotic behavior of the moments of the probability distribution, as a function of $\alpha$ and of the dynamic exponent $z$ associated to the scaling length of the process. We show that our scaling analysis also applies to e…
Stochastic sampling effects favor manual over digital contact tracing.
Isolation of symptomatic individuals, tracing and testing of their nonsymptomatic contacts are fundamental strategies for mitigating the current COVID-19 pandemic. The breaking of contagion chains relies on two complementary strategies: manual reconstruction of contacts based on interviews and a digital (app-based) privacy-preserving contact tracing. We compare their effectiveness using model parameters tailored to describe SARS-CoV-2 diffusion within the activity-driven model, a general empirically validated framework for network dynamics. We show that, even for equal probability of tracing a contact, manual tracing robustly performs better than the digital protocol, also taking into accou…