Nonequilibrium phase transitions induced by external noise in distributed systems

Abstract

A formalism is proposed to describe nonequilibrium phase transitions induced by external multiplicative noise in distributed systems. This approach can reduce the problem to an investigation of a regular differential equation whose roots correspond to possible phase states in the system. By means of this theory the relative probability of the existence of one state can be compared with another and the number of possible states identified, and the genesis of the system under the action of fluctuations of the external medium can be traced.