Effect of chaotic noise on multistable systems

In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 30, 3269 (1995)], we reported that a macroscopic chaotic determinism emerges in a multistable system: the unidirectional motion of a dissipative particle subject to an apparently symmetric chaotic noise occurs even if the particle is in a spatially symmetric potential. In this paper, we study the global dynamics of a dissipative particle by investigating the barrier crossing probability of the particle between two basins of the multistable potential. We derive analytically an expression of the barrier crossing probability of the particle subject to a chaotic noise generated by a general piecewise linear map. We also show that the obtained analytical barrier crossing probability is applicable to a chaotic noise generated not only by a piecewise linear map with a uniform invariant density but also by a nonpiecewise linear map with nonuniform invariant density. We claim, from the viewpoint of the noise induced motion in a multistable system, that chaotic noise is a first realization of the effect of dynamical asymmetry of general noise which induces the symmetry breaking dynamics.