Brownian Motion at the Speed of Light: A New Lorentz Invariant Family of Processes

Abstract

We consider here a new family of processes which describe particles which only can move at the speed of light c in the ordinary 3D physical space. The velocity, which randomly changes direction, can be represented as a point on the surface of a sphere of radius c and its trajectories only may connect points of this variety. A process can be constructed both by considering jumps from one point to another (velocity changes discontinuously) and by continuous velocity trajectories on the surface. We recently proposed to follow this second strategy assuming that the velocity is described by a Wiener process (which is isotropic only in the ’rest frame’) on the surface of the sphere. Using both Ito calculus and Lorentz boost rules, we succeed here in characterizing the entire Lorentz-invariant family of processes. Moreover, we highlight and describe the short-term ballistic behavior versus the long-term diffusive behavior of the particles in the 3D physical space.