Relaxation patterns and semi-Markov dynamics

Exponential relaxation to equilibrium is a typical property of physical systems, but inhomogeneities are known to distort the exponential relaxation curve, leading to a wide variety of relaxation patterns. Power law relaxation is related to fractional derivatives in the time variable. More general relaxation patterns are considered here, and the corresponding semi-Markov processes are studied. Our method, based on Bernstein functions, unifies three different approaches in the literature.