Lévy Stable Random Walks

Heavy-tailed distributions, superdiffusion & the generalized central limit theorem

Lévy Parameters

Max |step|
MSD exponent
Diffusion type
Lévy stable: Characteristic function φ(k) = exp(−c^α|k|^α(1+iβ sign(k) tan(πα/2))). For α < 2: power-law tails P(x) ~ |x|^(−1−α), infinite variance. MSD ~ t^(2/α) (superdiffusion). Generalized CLT: sum of i.i.d. heavy-tail r.v.s converges to Lévy stable, not Gaussian.