Mark Dykman, Michigan State University
October 16, 2014

Nonlinear vibrations are attracting interest in many areas, from nanomechanics to cavity quantum electrodynamics to Josephson junction based systems. Besides various applications, they allow one to address a general problem of quantum fluctuations in systems away from thermal equilibrium. We will show that these fluctuations display unusual features, including the mechanism of switching between coexisting stable periodic states that has no analog in equilibrium systems. We call it quantum activation. The scaling behavior of the switching rates will be outlined and a comparison with the experiment will be made. The effect of fragility of the rates of rare events in nonequilibrium systems will be also discussed.

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