Year: 1982
Type: article
Abstract: Kramers's original modeling of the thermally activated escape rate over a barrier is general- ized for Brownian-motion theory with long-time memory.The problem of the decay of a metastable state presents a central role in many areas of science, most notably in chemical kinetics, electron transport in semiconductors, and nonlinear optics.Limiting the discussion to one-dimensional systems, the problem can essentially be modeled by a "Brownian particle" moving in a double-well potential g (see Fig. 1).This model has been popular since Kramers's original Fokker-Planck approach.' Since Kramers, a number of investigators have improved and clarified several points: We mention the extension to the decay of a metastable state in driven nonequilibrium systems with nonuniform diffusion, ' the results for multidi-
Source: Physical Review A
Authors: Peter Hanggi, Fatemeh Mojtabai
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2039640860