From classical dynamics to continuous time random walks

Abstract

The migration of a classical dynamical system between regions of configuration space can be treated as a continuous time random walk between these regions. Derivation of a classical analog of the quantum mechanical generalized master equation provides expressions for the waiting time distribution in terms of transition memory functions. A short memory approximation to these memory functions is equivalent to the well-known transition state method. An example is discussed for which this approximation seems reasonable but is entirely wrong.