Stability measures in metastable states with Gaussian colored noise

TL;DR

This paper investigates how colored noise affects the escape time of an overdamped Brownian particle from a metastable state, revealing noise-enhanced stability across various correlation times and identifying two distinct dynamical regimes.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the influence of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck colored noise on metastable state stability, highlighting the noise-enhanced stability effect and characterizing different dynamical regimes.

Findings

Noise-enhanced stability observed for all initial unstable states

Correlation time influences mean first passage time

Two dynamical regimes identified based on noise correlation

Abstract

We present a study of the escape time from a metastable state of an overdamped Brownian particle, in the presence of colored noise generated by Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. We analyze the role of the correlation time on the enhancement of the mean first passage time through a potential barrier and on the behavior of the mean growth rate coefficient as a function of the noise intensity. We observe the noise enhanced stability effect for all the initial unstable states used, and for all values of the correlation time $\tau_c$ investigated. We can distinguish two dynamical regimes characterized by weak and strong correlated noise respectively, depending on the value of $\tau_c$ with respect to the relaxation time of the system.