Velocity Multistability vs. Ergodicity Breaking in a Biased Periodic Potential

Multistability, i.e., the coexistence of several attractors for a given set of system parameters, is one of the most important phenomena occurring in dynamical systems. We consider it in the velocity dynamics of a Brownian particle, driven by thermal fluctuations and moving in a biased periodic potential. In doing so, we focus on the impact of ergodicity—A concept which lies at the core of statistical mechanics. The latter implies that a single trajectory of the system is representative for the whole ensemble and, as a consequence, the initial conditions of the dynamics are fully forgotten. The ergodicity of the deterministic counterpart is strongly broken, and we discuss how the velocity multistability depends on the starting position and velocity of the particle. While for non-zero temperatures the ergodicity is, in principle, restored, in the low temperature regime the velocity dynamics is still affected by initial conditions due to weak ergodicity breaking. For moderate and high temperatures, the multistability is robust with respect to the choice of the starting position and velocity of the particle.

Ergodicity-breaking reveals time optimal decision making in humans

Ergodicity describes an equivalence between the expectation value and the time average of observables. Applied to human behaviour, ergodic theories of decision-making reveal how individuals should tolerate risk in different environments. To optimise wealth over time, agents should adapt their utility function according to the dynamical setting they face. Linear utility is optimal for additive dynamics, whereas logarithmic utility is optimal for multiplicative dynamics. Whether humans approximate time optimal behavior across different dynamics is unknown. Here we compare the effects of additive versus multiplicative gamble dynamics on risky choice. We show that utility functions are modulated by gamble dynamics in ways not explained by prevailing decision theories. Instead, as predicted by time optimality, risk aversion increases under multiplicative dynamics, distributing close to the values that maximise the time average growth of in-game wealth. We suggest that our findings motivate a need for explicitly grounding theories of decision-making on ergodic considerations.

Effect of Ergodic and Non-Ergodic Fluctuations on a Charge Diffusing in a Stochastic Magnetic Field

In this paper, we study the basic problem of a charged particle in a stochastic magnetic field. We consider dichotomous fluctuations of the magnetic field where the sojourn time in one of the two states are distributed according to a given waiting-time distribution either with Poisson or non-Poisson statistics, including as well the case of distributions with diverging mean time between changes of the field, corresponding to an ergodicity breaking condition. We provide analytical and numerical results for all cases evaluating the average and the second moment of the position and velocity of the particle. We show that the field fluctuations induce diffusion of the charge with either normal or anomalous properties, depending on the statistics of the fluctuations, with distinct regimes from those observed, e.g., in standard Continuous-Time Random Walk models.

Inertia triggers nonergodicity of fractional Brownian motion

How related are the ergodic properties of the over- and underdamped Langevin equations driven by fractional Gaussian noise? We here find that for massive particles performing fractional Brownian motion (FBM) inertial effects not only destroy the stylized fact of the equivalence of the ensemble-averaged mean-squared displacement (MSD) to the time-averaged MSD (TAMSD) of overdamped or massless FBM, but also concurrently dramatically alter the values of the ergodicity breaking parameter (EB). Our theoretical results for the behavior of EB for underdamped ot massive FBM for varying particle mass m, Hurst exponent H, and trace length T are in excellent agreement with the findings of extensive stochastic computer simulations. The current results can be of interest for the experimental community employing various single-particle-tracking techniques and aiming at assessing the degree of nonergodicity for the recorded time series (studying e.g. the behavior of EB versus lag time). To infer FBM as a realizable model of anomalous diffusion for a set single-particle-tracking data when massive particles are being tracked, the EBs from the data should be compared to EBs of massive (rather than massless) FBM.

Time-averaging and emerging nonergodicity upon resetting of fractional Brownian motion and heterogeneous diffusion processes

How different are the results of constant-rate resetting of anomalous-diffusion processes in terms of their ensemble-averaged versus time-averaged mean-squared displacements (MSDs versus TAMSDs) and how does the process of stochastic resetting impact nonergodicity? These are the main questions addressed in this study. Specifically, we examine, both analytically and by stochastic simulations, the implications of resetting on the MSD-and TAMSD-based spreading dynamics of fractional Brownian motion (FBM) with a long-time memory, of heterogeneous diffusion processes (HDPs) with a power-law-like space-dependent diffusivity D(x) = D0 |x| γ, and of their “combined” process of HDP-FBM. We find, i.a., that the resetting dynamics of originally ergodic FBM for superdiffusive choices of the Hurst exponent develops distinct disparities in the scaling behavior and magnitudes of the MSDs and mean TAMSDs, indicating so-called weak ergodicity breaking (WEB). For subdiffusive HDPs we also quantify the nonequivalence of the MSD and TAMSD, and additionally observe a new trimodal form of the probability density function (PDF) of particle’ displacements. For all three reset processes (FBM, HDPs, and HDP-FBM) we compute analytically and verify by stochastic computer simulations the short-time (normal and anomalous) MSD and TAMSD asymptotes (making conclusions about WEB) as well as the long-time MSD and TAMSD plateaus, reminiscent of those for “confined” processes. We show that certain characteristics of the reset processes studied are functionally similar, despite the very different stochastic nature of their nonreset variants. Importantly, we discover nonmonotonicity of the ergodicity breaking parameter EB as a function of the resetting rate r. For all the reset processes studied, we unveil a pronounced resetting-induced nonergodicity with a maximum of EB at intermediate r and EB ∼ (1/r)-decay at large r values. Together with the emerging MSD-versus-TAMSD disparity, this pronounced r-dependence of the EB parameter can be an experimentally testable prediction. We conclude via discussing some implications of our results to experimental systems featuring resetting dynamics.

Testing of Multifractional Brownian Motion

Fractional Brownian motion (FBM) is a generalization of the classical Brownian motion. Most of its statistical properties are characterized by the self-similarity (Hurst) index 0<H<1. In nature one often observes changes in the dynamics of a system over time. For example, this is true in single-particle tracking experiments where a transient behavior is revealed. The stationarity of increments of FBM restricts substantially its applicability to model such phenomena. Several generalizations of FBM have been proposed in the literature. One of these is called multifractional Brownian motion (MFBM) where the Hurst index becomes a function of time. In this paper, we introduce a rigorous statistical test on MFBM based on its covariance function. We consider three examples of the functions of the Hurst parameter: linear, logistic, and periodic. We study the power of the test for alternatives being MFBMs with different linear, logistic, and periodic Hurst exponent functions by utilizing Monte Carlo simulations. We also analyze mean-squared displacement (MSD) for the three cases of MFBM by comparing the ensemble average MSD and ensemble average time average MSD, which is related to the notion of ergodicity breaking. We believe that the presented results will be helpful in the analysis of various anomalous diffusion phenomena.