Noisy bistable hysteresis with modulation of large amplitude and high frequency

In this paper we utilize a narrow wavepacket approximation to study noisy bistable hysteresis when the amplitude of modulation is sufficiently large and the frequency is in a suitable intermediate range. When the background double well potential and the modulating potential are of polynomial type, the dynamics can be described in terms of only two variables. This reduction permits extensive numerical investigations and we present evidence for some new scaling laws for the hysteresis loop area. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.