Effect of non-Gaussian noises on the stochastic resonance-like phenomenon in gated traps

We exploit a simple one-dimensional trapping model introduced before, prompted by the problem of ion current across a biological membrane. The voltage-sensitive channels are open or closed depending on the value taken by an external potential that has two contributions: a deterministic periodic and a stochastic one. Here we assume that the noise source is colored and non-Gaussian, with a q-dependent probability distribution (where q is a parameter indicating the departure from Gaussianity). We analyze the behavior of the oscillation amplitude as a function of both q and the noise correlation time. The main result is that in addition to the resonant-like maximum as a function of the noise intensity, there is a new resonant maximum as a function of the parameter q. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.