Decay of metastable states

A.N. Drozdov

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 1992, vol. 187, issue 1, 329-352

Abstract: The equilibration process, activated by noise, is considered as an eigenproblem of the Fokker-Planck operator. The rate of escape from quite general metastable states is calculated analytically via Rayleigh's identity. Its usefulness is demonstrated with an example of the escape of a Brownian particle across a multidimensional potential barrier. Our result is shown to provide a unified treatment of the whole range of frictional dissipation. For the case with an unknown equilibrium distribution a correction formula is derived. Its relative error decreases with decreasing noise intensity ϵ as ϵ2, instead of ϵ as is the case for the standard formulae. Our results generalize the known expressions for transition rates in a very natural way. Possible limitations of their validity are discussed, and a way to overcome them is proposed.

Date: 1992
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:187:y:1992:i:1:p:329-352

DOI: 10.1016/0378-4371(92)90425-P

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