We present a comprehensive study of phase transitions in single-field extended systems that relax to a non-equilibrium global steady state. The mechanism we focus on is not the so-called Stratonovich drift but is instead similar to the one associated with noise-induced transitions a la Horsthemke-Lefever in zero-dimensional systems. As a consequence, the noise interpretation (e.g., Ito vs Stratonovich) merely shifts the phase boundaries. With the help of a mean-field approximation, we present a broad qualitative picture of the various phase diagrams that can be found in these systems.

Date Published: 25 May 2004
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 5471, Noise in Complex Systems and Stochastic Dynamics II, (25 May 2004); doi: 10.1117/12.545828

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 5471:
Noise in Complex Systems and Stochastic Dynamics II
Zoltan Gingl, Editor(s)