Stochastic Resetting of Diffusive Particles: From Single-Particle Dynamics to Many-Body Phenomena

Gregory Schehr

Sorbonne University

Stochastic processes under resetting have garnered increasing attention in recent years. One of the simplest examples involves a diffusive particle whose position is randomly reset to a fixed point, such as its initial position, at a constant rate r. Even this basic system reveals fascinating phenomena: (i) the system reaches a nontrivial nonequilibrium stationary state, and (ii) the mean time for the particle to reach a target becomes finite, with an optimal resetting rate r that minimizes the search time.

After introducing these intriguing features, I will extend the discussion to a one-dimensional gas of N independent Brownian particles, all of which are reset simultaneously to the origin at a constant rate r. Despite the absence of direct interactions between the particles, I will demonstrate that strong correlations emerge in the stationary state at long times, purely driven by the dynamics of resetting itself.

About speaker

I earned my PhD in Theoretical Physics from École Normale Supérieure in 2003, followed by a postdoc at the University of Saarland, Germany. In 2006, I joined CNRS and became a Research Director at Sorbonne Université in 2019. Since 2023, I have also been a Professeur Chargé de Cours at École Polytechnique. My research focuses on statistical mechanics, including non-equilibrium dynamics, random matrices, disordered systems or extreme value statistics. I received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2010 and the Aniuta Winter-Klein Prize from the Academy of Sciences in 2022.