Periodically time-modulated bistable systems: Stochastic resonance

We characterize the notion of stochastic resonance for a wide class of bistable systems driven by a periodic modulation. On developing an adiabatic picture of the underlying relaxation mechanism, we show that the intensity of the effect under study is proportional to the escape rate in absence of pertubation. The adiabatic model of stochastic resonance accounts for the role of finite damping and finite noise correlation time as well. Our predictions compare well with the results of analogue simulation.