Lévy flight models are often used to describe stochastic processes in complex systems. However, due to the occurrence of diverging position and/or velocity fluctuations Lévy flights are physically problematic if describing the dynamics of a particle of finite mass. Here we show that the velocity distribution of a random walker subject to Lévy noise can be regularized by nonlinear friction, leading to a natural cutoff in the velocity distribution and finite velocity variance.

• Received 23 September 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.72.010101