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Abstract The stochastic trajectories of molecules in living cells, as well as the dynamics in many other complex systems, often exhibit memory in their path over long periods of time. In addition, these systems can show dynamic heterogeneities due to which the motion changes along the trajectories. Such effects manifest themselves as spatiotemporal correlations. Despite the broad occurrence of heterogeneous complex systems in nature, their analysis is still quite poorly understood and tools to model them are largely missing. We contribute to tackling this problem by employing an integral representation of Mandelbrot’s fractional Brownian motion that is compliant with varying motion parameters while maintaining long memory. Two types of switching fractional Brownian motion are analysed, with transitions arising from a Markovian stochastic process and scale-free intermittent processes. We obtain simple formulas for classical statistics of the processes, namely the mean squared displacement and the power spectral density. Further, a method to identify switching fractional Brownian motion based on the distribution of displacements is described. A validation of the model is given for experimental measurements of the motion of quantum dots in the cytoplasm of live mammalian cells that were obtained by single-particle tracking.
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This content will become publicly available on February 1, 2026
Two-dimensional Brownian motion with dependent components: Turning angle analysis
Brownian motion in one or more dimensions is extensively used as a stochastic process to model natural and engineering signals, as well as financial data. Most works dealing with multidimensional Brownian motion consider the different dimensions as independent components. In this article, we investigate a model of correlated Brownian motion in R2, where the individual components are not necessarily independent. We explore various statistical properties of the process under consideration, going beyond the conventional analysis of the second moment. Our particular focus lies on investigating the distribution of turning angles. This distribution reveals particularly interesting characteristics for processes with dependent components that are relevant to applications in diverse physical systems. Theoretical considerations are supported by numerical simulations and analysis of two real-world datasets: the financial data of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard and Poor’s 500, and trajectories of polystyrene beads in water. Finally, we show that the model can be readily extended to trajectories with correlations that change over time.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2102832
- PAR ID:
- 10652934
- Publisher / Repository:
- Chaos
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science
- Volume:
- 35
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1054-1500
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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