Asymmetric Escape from a Metastable State Induced by Noise Recycling in a Symmetric Triple-Well Potential

We investigate the escape process of the thermally activated particles in a symmetric triple-well potential in the presence of recycled noise, which includes a delayed component generated from a primary Gaussian noise source. The ratio of the transition rates R of the particles from the middle well to the side wells is obtained by stochastic simulations. The results indicate that R as a function of the recycled noise intensity shows a non-monotonic behavior with a maximum or a minimum, and the other parameters such as the delay time and recycling strength can cause a deviation of R from unity, implying that the recycled noise may induce symmetry breaking and a variation of the relative stability of the two side wells with respect to the middle one. These observations illustrate that noise recycling may be used as an effective scheme for controlling the distribution of the products in the course of a parallel reaction by deliberately adjusting the parameters of the recycled noise.