On the Tail Transition of First Arrival Position Channels: From Cauchy to Exponential Decay

Abstract: While the zero-drift First Arrival Position (FAP) channel is rigorously known to be Cauchy-distributed, practical molecular communication systems typically operate with non-zero drift. This letter characterizes the transition from heavy-tailed Cauchy behavior to light-tailed exponential decay. Through asymptotic analysis, we identify a critical spatial scale $n_c=σ<sup>2/v$ separating diffusion- and drift-dominated regimes, revealing that the channel effectively behaves as a ``Truncated Cauchy'' model. Numerical results show that Gaussian approximations severely underestimate capacity at low drift, while the zero-drift case provides the appropriate performance lower bound for systems where drift assists particle transport.