A Counterexample to the L\'evy Flight Foraging Hypothesis in the Narrow Capture Framework

Abstract

The L\'evy flight foraging hypothesis asserts that biological organisms have evolved to employ (truncated) L\'evy flight searches due to such strategies being more efficient than those based on Brownian motion. However, we provide here a concrete two-dimensional counterexample in which Brownian search is more efficient. In fact, we show that the efficiency of L\'evy searches worsens the farther the L\'evy flight tail index deviates from the Brownian limit. Our counterexample is based on the framework of the classic narrow capture problem in which a random search is performed for a small target within a confined search domain. Our results are obtained via three avenues: Monte Carlo simulations of the discrete search processes, finite difference solutions and a matched asymptotic analysis of the elliptic (pseudo)-differential equations of the corresponding continuum limits.