Fractional Brownian motions : memory, diffusion velocity, and correlation functions

Fractional Brownian motions (FBMs) have been observed recently in the measured trajectories of individual molecules or small particles in the cytoplasm of living cells and in other dense composite systems, among others. Various types of FBMs differ in a number of ways, including the strength, range and type of damping of the memory encoded in their definitions, but share several basic characteristics: distributions, non-ergodic properties, and scaling of the second moment, which makes it difficult to determine which type of Brownian motion (fractional or normal) the measured trajectory belongs to. Here, we show, by introducing FBMs with regulated range and strength of memory, that it is the structure of memory which determines their physical properties, including mean velocity of diffusion; therefore, the course and kinetics of several processes (including coagulation and some chemical reactions). We also show that autocorrelation functions possess characteristic features which enable identification of an observed FBM, and of the type of memory governing its trajectory