The excited random walk in one dimension

We study the excited random walk, in which a walk that is at a site that contains cookies eats one cookie and then hops to the right with probability p and to the left with probability q = 1−p. If the walk hops onto an empty site, there is no bias. For the 1-excited walk on the half-line (one cookie initially at each site), the probability of first returning to the starting point at time t scales as t−(2−p). Although the average return time to the origin is infinite for all p, the walk eats, on average, only a finite number of cookies until this first return when p < 1/2. For the infinite line, the probability distribution for the 1-excited walk has an unusual anomaly at the origin. The positions of the leftmost and rightmost uneaten cookies can be accurately estimated by probabilistic arguments and their corresponding distributions have power-law singularities. The 2-excited walk on the infinite line exhibits peculiar features in the regime p > 3/4, where the walk is transient, including a mean displacement that grows as t , with ν > 2 dependent on p, and a breakdown of scaling for the probability distribution of the walk. PACS numbers: 02.50.−r, 05.40.−a (Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)