Synchronization of random walks with reflecting boundaries

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Reflecting boundary conditions cause two one-dimensional random walks to synchronize if a common direction is chosen in each step. The mean synchronization time and its standard deviation are calculated analytically. Both quantities are found to increase proportional to the square of the system size. Additionally, the probability of synchronization in a given step is analyzed, which converges to a geometric distribution for long synchronization times. From this asymptotic behavior the number of steps required to synchronize an ensemble of independent random walk pairs is deduced. Here the synchronization time increases with the logarithm of the ensemble size. The results of this model are compared to those observed in neural synchronization.