Rare Transition Events in Nonequilibrium Systems with State-Dependent Noise: Application to Stochastic Current Switching in Semiconductor Superlattices

2010/08/24 by Heymann, Matthias, Teitsworth, Stephen W., Mattingly, Jonathan C.
#05.10.-a #05.10.Gg #05.40.-a #72.70.+m #FOS: Mathematics #FOS: Physical sciences #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci) #Probability (math.PR)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1008.4037

Abstract

Using recent mathematical advances, a geometric approach to rare noise-driven transition events in nonequilibrium systems is given, and an algorithm for computing the maximum likelihood transition curve is generalized to the case of state-dependent noise. It is applied to a model of electronic transport in semiconductor superlattices to investigate transitions between metastable electric field distributions. When the applied voltage V is varied near a saddle-node bifurcation at V_th, the mean life time of the initial metastable state is shown to scale like log ∝ |V_th - V|^3/2 as V→ V_th.

Related

• Theory of charge fluctuations and domain relocation times in semiconductor superlattices
• Transport Statistics of Bistable Systems
• Nondecay probability of a metastable state: almost exact analytical description in wide range of noise intensity
• Exponential increase of transition rates in metastable systems driven by non-Gaussian noise
• Stochastic resonance in a quasi-two-dimensional superlattice. II