Lévy strategies in intermittent search processes are advantageous
Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: Intermittent search processes switch between local Brownian search events and ballistic relocation phases. We demonstrate analytically and numerically in one dimension that when relocation times are Lévy distributed, resulting in a Lévy walk dynamics, the search process significantly outperforms the previously investigated case of exponentially distributed relocation times: The resulting Lévy walks reduce oversampling and thus further optimize the intermittent search strategy in the critical situation of rare targets. We also show that a searching agent that uses the Lévy strategy is much less sensitive to the target density, which would require considerably less adaptation by the searcher.
Language: English
Subfield: Molecular Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2005114838