Stochastic resonance in underdamped, bistable systems

We carry out a detailed numerical investigation of stochastic resonance in underdamped systems in the nonperturbative regime. We point out that an important distinction between stochastic resonance in overdamped and underdamped systems lies in the lack of dependence of the amplitude of the noise-averaged trajectory on the noise strength, in the latter case. We provide qualitative explanations for the observed behaviour and show that signatures such as the initial decay and long-time oscillatory behaviour of the temporal correlation function and peaks in the noise and phase averaged power spectral density, clearly indicate the manifestation of resonant behaviour in noisy, underdamped bistable systems in the weak to moderate noise regime. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.