Nonlinear stochastic resonance with subthreshold rectangular pulses -: art. no. 067101

We analyze the phenomenon of nonlinear stochastic resonance (SR) in noisy bistable systems driven by pulsed time periodic forces. The driving force contains, within each period, two pulses of equal constant amplitude and duration but opposite signs. Each pulse starts every half period and its duration is varied. For subthreshold amplitudes, we study the dependence of the output signal-to-noise ratio and the SR gain on the noise strength and the relative duration of the pulses. We find that the SR gains can reach values larger than unity, with maximum values showing a nonmonotonic dependence on the duration of the pulses.