Bimodality and transient trimodality for Brownian particles in shear flows: A path-integral approach

Abstract
The problem of Brownian motion in shear flows is analyzed using a path-integral approach and a piecewise-linearized velocity profile. In this way, the complete two-dimensional conditional probability distribution is found and the unimodal-bimodal transition in the longitudinal distribution is consistently described. A remarkable aspect is the appearance of a transient trimodal regime.