Physics

 

Dr. Vaibhav Wasnik
Indian Institute of Technology, Goa.

Average search time bounds in cue based searches

In this talk we consider the problem of searches that utilise past information gathered during
searching, to evaluate the probability distribution of finding the source at each step. We start with a
sample strategy where the movement at each step is in the immediate neighbourhood direction,
with a probability proportional to the normalised difference in the probability of finding the source at
the immediate location, with the probability of finding the source at the present location. We
evaluate a lower bound for the average search time for this strategy. We next consider the
problem of the lower bound on any strategy that utilises information of the probability distribution
evaluated by the searcher at any instant. We derive an expression for the same. Finally we present
an analytic expression for this lower bound in the case of homogeneous diffusion of particles by a
source.