Lévy flights of photons in hot atomic vapours
Lévy flights of photons in hot atomic vapours
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DOI：
10.1038/nphys1286
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发表时间：
2009-04
期刊：
影响因子：
19.6
通讯作者：
N. Mercadier;W. Guerin;M. Chevrollier;R. Kaiser
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
N. Mercadier;W. Guerin;M. Chevrollier;R. Kaiser
随机和波动系统的性质通常通过使用高斯分布来研究。然而，在许多情况下，罕见的事件会产生严重的后果，这是高斯统计无法解释的。因此，在研究非高斯波动（如lsamvy统计）、推广随机漫步的标准描述方面，人们付出了相当大的努力。不幸的是，在物理系统中通常只能观察到通过对许多随机步骤进行平均而获得的宏观特征。我们给出了研究光子在热原子蒸气中反常扩散的基本过程的实验结果。我们测量了随机漫步的步长分布，并表明它遵循lsamvy飞行的幂律特征。
The properties of random and fluctuating systems are often studied through the use of Gaussian distributions. However, in a number of situations, rare events have drastic consequences, which cannot be explained by Gaussian statistics. Considerable efforts have thus been devoted to the study of non-Gaussian fluctuations such as Lévy statistics, generalizing the standard description of random walks. Unfortunately, only macroscopic signatures, obtained by averaging over many random steps, are usually observed in physical systems. We present experimental results investigating the elementary process of anomalous diffusion of photons in hot atomic vapours. We measure the step-size distribution of the random walk and show that it follows a power-law characteristic of Lévy flights.