Using Restart Sequences to Determine Beneficial First Passage Under Restart

Abstract

First Passage (FP) processes are utilized widely to model phenomena in many areas of mathematical applications, from biology to computer science. Introducing a mechanism to restart the parent process can alter the first passage characteristics, and the properties of the resulting First Passage Under Restart (FPUR) process have been subject to much recent investigation. Here we seek to more fully characterize whether a discrete FP process can have its mean hitting time reduced through the implementation of restart by analyzing a construct we call the restart sequence, which is determined solely by the distribution of the FP process.