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Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Synthesis of Cyclic Polymers and Characterization of Their Diffusive Motion in the Melt State at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: September 26, 2016
Subdiffusion of mixed origins: when ergodicity and nonergodicity coexist
Yasmine Meroz1, Igor M Sokolov, Joseph Klafter
1School of Chemistry, Raymond & Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Sciences, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel. merozyas@post.tau.ac.il
Abstract:
Single particle trajectories are investigated assuming the coexistence of two subdiffusive processes: diffusion on a fractal structure modeling spatial constraints on motion and heavy-tailed continuous time random walks representing energetic or chemical traps. The particles' mean squared displacement is found to depend on the way the mean is taken: temporal averaging over single-particle trajectories differs from averaging over an ensemble of particles. This is shown to stem from subordinating an ergodic anomalous process to a nonergodic one. The result is easily generalized to the subordination of any other ergodic process (i.e., fractional Brownian motion) to a nonergodic one. For certain parameters the ergodic diffusion on the underlying fractal structure dominates the transport yet displaying ergodicity breaking and aging.
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