Stochastic resonance and heat fluctuations in a driven double-well system

Abstract

We study a periodically driven (symmetric as well as asymmetric) double-well potential system at finite temperature. We show that mean heat loss by the system to the environment (bath) per period of the applied field is a good quantifier of stochastic resonance. It is found that the heat fluctuations over a single period are always larger than the work fluctuations. The observed distributions of work and heat exhibit pronounced asymmetry near resonance. The heat loss over a large number of periods satisfies the conventional steady-state fluctuation theorem.