A modified random walk in the presence of partially reflecting barriers

Abstract

The paper deals with the one-dimensional modified random walk in the presence of partially reflecting barriers at a and –b (a, b > 0). The simple one-dimensional random walk on a line is the motion-record of a particle which may extend over (–∞, + ∞) or be restricted to a portion of it by absorbing and/or reflecting barriers. Here we introduce the possibility of a particle staying put along with its moving a unit step to the right or to the left and find the bivariate generating functions of the probabilities of a particle reaching m (0 <m <a) under different conditions.