Intermittent particle transport with arbitrary distributions of duration of motional phases

Abstract

Abstract Intermittent transport of biological objects, including ballistic and Brownian motion, Brownian motion with drift, occurs universally in various forms and scales. In many instances models of intermittent transport imply that the distribution of duration of motional phases is exponential. However, this is by no means always the case. In this paper we generalize the model of intermittent transport, proposed in Bressloff P C and Newby J M 2013 Rev. Mod. Phys. 85 135–196, to the general case of arbitrary distributions of duration of motional phases. We derive also an asymptotic approximation to the model in the assumption that transitions between the phases are frequent.