Experiments on Critical Phenomena in a Noisy Exit Problem

Luchinsky, D. G.; Maier, R. S.; Mannella, R.; McClintock, P. V. E.; Stein, D. L.

Experiments on Critical Phenomena in a Noisy Exit Problem

Authors

Description

We consider noise-driven exit from a domain of attraction in a two-dimensional bistable system lacking detailed balance. Through analog and digital stochastic simulations, we find a theoretically predicted bifurcation of the most probable exit path as the parameters of the system are changed, and a corresponding nonanalyticity of the activation energy. We also investigate the extent to which the bifurcation is related to the local breaking of time-reversal invariance.
4 pages, 5 figures, REVTEX