Physical Review A, 39, 149-156 (1989).
Characteristic decay times for relaxation close to the marginal point of optical bistability are studied. A model-independent formula for the decay time is given which interpolates between Kramers time for activated decay and deterministic relaxation time. This formula gives the decay time as a universal scaling function of the parameter which measures deviation from marginality. The standard deviation of the first-passage-time distribution is found to vary linearly with the decay time, close to a marginality, with a slope independent of the noise intensity. Our results are subtantiated by numerical simulations and their experimental relevance is pointed out.
Pere Colet e-mail: [email protected] http://www.imedea.uib.es/~pere/