Metastable states and information propagation in a one-dimensional array of locally coupled bistable cells

We study the effect of metastable states on the relaxation process (and hence information propagation) in locally coupled and boundary-driven structures. We first give a general argument to show that metastable states are inevitable even in the simplest of structures, a wire. At finite temperatures, the relaxation mechanism is a thermally assisted random walk. The time required to reach the ground state and its lifetime are determined by the coupling parameters. These time scales are studied in a model based on an array of quantum dots. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(99)09203-8].