1203.6814 (P. S. Burada et al.)

Escape rate of an active Brownian particle over a potential barrier    [PDF]

P. S. Burada, B. Lindner

We study the dynamics of an active Brownian particle with a nonlinear friction function located in a spatial cubic potential. For strong but finite damping, the escape rate of the particle over the spatial potential barrier shows a nonmonotonic dependence on the noise intensity. We relate this behavior to the fact that the active particle escapes from a limit cycle rather than from a fixed point and that a certain amount of noise can stabilize the sojourn of the particle on this limit cycle.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.6814