Universal Survival Probability for a <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>d</mml:mi></mml:math>-Dimensional Run-and-Tumble Particle
Francesco Mori, Pierre Le Doussal, Satya N. Majumdar, Grégory Schehr
Abstract
We consider an active run-and-tumble particle (RTP) in d dimensions and compute exactly the probability S(t) that the x component of the position of the RTP does not change sign up to time t. When the tumblings occur at a constant rate, we show that S(t) is independent of d for any finite time t (and not just for large t), as a consequence of the celebrated Sparre Andersen theorem for discrete-time random walks in one dimension. Moreover, we show that this universal result holds for a much wider class of RTP models in which the speed v of the particle after each tumbling is random, drawn from an arbitrary probability distribution. We further demonstrate, as a consequence, the universality of the record statistics in the RTP problem.