Eur. Phys. J. B 40, 273-281 (2004)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2004-00268-8

Enhancement of stability in randomly switching potential with metastable state

¹ INFM, Unità di Palermo and Dipartimento di Fisica e Tecnologie Relative - Università di Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, pad.18, 90128 Palermo, Italy
² Radiophysics Department, Nizhny Novgorod State University - 23 Gagarin Ave., Nizhny Novgorod, 603950 Russia

Corresponding author: ^a spagnolo@unipa.it

Received: 15 May 2004
Revised: 16 June 2004
Published online: 31 August 2004

Abstract

The overdamped motion of a Brownian particle in randomly switching piece-wise metastable linear potential shows noise enhanced stability (NES): the noise stabilizes the metastable system and the system remains in this state for a longer time than in the absence of white noise. The mean first passage time (MFPT) has a maximum at a finite value of white noise intensity. The analytical expression of MFPT in terms of the white noise intensity, the parameters of the potential barrier, and of the dichotomous noise is derived. The conditions for the NES phenomenon and the parameter region where the effect can be observed are obtained. The mean first passage time behaviors as a function of the mean flipping rate of the potential for unstable and metastable initial configurations are also analyzed. We observe the resonant activation phenomenon for initial metastable configuration of the potential profile.