Noise Enhanced Stability in Fluctuating Metastable States
Abstract
We derive general equations for the nonlinear relaxation time of Brownian diffusion in randomly switching potential with a sink. For piece-wise linear dichotomously fluctuating potential with metastable state, we obtain the exact average lifetime as a function of the potential parameters and the noise intensity. Our result is valid for arbitrary white noise intensity and for arbitrary fluctuation rate of the potential. We find noise enhanced stability phenomenon in the system investigated: the average lifetime of the metastable state is greater than the time obtained in the absence of additive white noise. We obtain the parameter region of the fluctuating potential where the effect can be observed. The system investigated also exhibits a maximum of the lifetime as a function of the fluctuation rate of the potential.
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0405536,
title = {Noise Enhanced Stability in Fluctuating Metastable States},
author = {Alexander A. Dubkov and Nikolay V. Agudov and Bernardo Spagnolo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0405536},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
7 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E vol. 69 (6),2004