Abstract
The problem of noise-induced escape from a metastable state arises in many areas of science. If the dynamics of the system under investigation are specified by a nongradient drift field, many classical results on the weak-noise limit do not apply. The absence of gradient deterministic dynamics can lead to rarely considered, nonintuitive phenomena, such as most probable exit paths from a domain of attraction that terminate at unstable fixed points (mountain peaks) rather than the usual saddle points; non-Gaussian limiting distributions of exit points; and the appearance of focusing singularities along the most probable exit paths. We discuss these novel phenomena.
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Maier, R.S., Stein, D.L. (1996). The Weak-Noise Characteristic Boundary Exit Problem: Old and New Results. In: Millonas, M. (eds) Fluctuations and Order. Institute for Nonlinear Science. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3992-5_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-3992-5_8
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