MFPT calculation for random walks in inhomogeneous networks

Abstract

Knowing the expected arrival time at a particular state, also known as the mean first passage time (MFPT), often plays an important role for a large class of random walkers in their respective state-spaces. Contrasting to ideal conditions required by recent advancements on MFPT estimations, many naturally occurring random walkers encounter inhomogeneity of transport characteristics in the networks they walk on. This paper presents a heuristic method to divide an inhomogeneous network into homogeneous network primitives (NPs) optimized using particle swarm optimizer, and to use a ‘hop-wise’ MFPT calculation method. This methodology's potential is demonstrated through simulated random walks an..