Slow L\'evy flights

Abstract

Among Markovian processes, the hallmark of L\'evy flights is superdiffusion, or faster-than-Brownian dynamics. Here we show that L\'evy laws, as well as Gaussians, can also be the limit distributions of processes with long range memory that exhibit very slow diffusion, logarithmic in time. These processes are path-dependent and anomalous motion emerges from frequent relocations to already visited sites. We show how the Central Limit Theorem is modified in this context, keeping the usual distinction between analytic and non-analytic characteristic functions. A fluctuation-dissipation relation is also derived. Our results may have important applications in the study of animal and human displacements.