title: Anomalous diffusion and the first passage time problem
abstract: We study the distribution of the first passage time (FPT) in Levy type anomalous diffusion. Using the recently formulated fractional Fokker-Planck equation we obtain three results. (1) We derive an explicit expression for the FPT distribution in terms of Fox or H functions when the diffusion has zero drift. (2) For the nonzero drift case we obtain an analytical expression for the Laplace transform of the FPT distribution. (3) We express the FPT distribution in terms of a power series for the case of two absorbing barriers. The known results for ordinary diffusion (Brownian motion) are obtained as special cases of our more general results.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Centre for Theoretical Studies, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India.
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rangarajan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ding