Saddle avoidance of noise-induced transitions in multiscale systems

Börner, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4593-7721, Deeley, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-9653-8100, Römer, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-4812-0150, Grafke, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0839-676X, Lucarini, V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9392-1471 and Feudel, U. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6638-6095 (2024) Saddle avoidance of noise-induced transitions in multiscale systems. Physical Review Research, 6 (4). L042053. ISSN 2643-1564 doi: 10.1103/physrevresearch.6.l042053

Abstract/Summary

In multistable dynamical systems driven by weak Gaussian noise, transitions between competing states are often assumed to pass via a saddle on the separating basin boundary. By contrast, we show that timescale separation can cause saddle avoidance in nongradient systems. Using toy models from neuroscience and ecology, we study cases where sample transitions deviate strongly from the instanton predicted by the Freidlin-Wentzell theory, even for weak finite noise. We attribute this to a flat quasipotential and present an approach based on the Onsager-Machlup action to aptly predict transition paths.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/id/eprint/119856
Identification Number/DOI	10.1103/physrevresearch.6.l042053
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Publisher	American Physical Society (APS)
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