A Simple Noise Model with Memory for Biological Systems

A noise source model, consisting of a pulse sequence at random times with memory, is presented. By varying the memory we can obtain variable randomness of the stochastic process. The delay time between pulses, i. e. the noise memory, produces different kinds of correlated noise ranging from white noise, without delay, to quasi-periodical process, with delay close to the average period of the pulses. The spectral density is calculated. This type of noise could be useful to describe physical and biological systems where some delay is present. In particular it could be useful in population dynamics. A simple dynamical model for epidemiological infection with this noise source is presented. We …

How diffusivity, thermocline and incident light intensity modulate the dynamics of Deep Chlorophyll Maximum in Tyrrhenian Sea

During the last few years theoretical works have shed new light and proposed new hypotheses on the mechanisms which regulate the spatio-temporal behaviour of phytoplankton communities in marine pelagic ecosystems. Despite this, relevant physical and biological issues, such as effects of the time- dependent mixing in the upper layer, competition between groups, and dynamics of non-stationary deep chlorophyll maxima, are still open questions. In this work, we analyze the spatio-temporal behaviour of five phytoplankton populations in a real marine ecosystem by using a one-dimensional reaction-diffusion-taxis model. The study is performed, taking into account the seasonal variations of environm…

Stabilization of quantum metastable states by dissipation

Normally, quantum fluctuations enhance the escape from metastable states in the presence of dissipation. Here we show that dissipation can enhance the stability of a quantum metastable system, consisting of a particle moving in a strongly asymmetric double well potential, interacting with a thermal bath. We find that the escape time from the metastable state has a nonmonotonic behavior versus the system-bath coupling and the temperature, producing a stabilizing effect.

A new approach to predict the fish fillet shelf-life in presence of natural preservative agents

Three data sets concerning the behaviour of spoilage flora of fillets treated with natural preservative substances (NPS) were used to construct a new kind of mathematical predictive model. This model, unlike other ones, allows expressing the antibacterial effect of the NPS separately from the prediction of the growth rate. This approach, based on the introduction of a parameter into the predictive primary model, produced a good fitting of observed data and allowed characterising quantitatively the increase of shelf-life of fillets.

Effects of Lévy noise on the dynamics of sine-Gordon solitons in long Josephson junctions

We numerically investigate the generation of solitons in current-biased long Josephson junctions in relation to the superconducting lifetime and the voltage drop across the device. The dynamics of the junction is modelled with a sine-Gordon equation driven by an oscillating field and subject to an external non-Gaussian noise. A wide range of $\alpha$-stable L\'evy distributions is considered as noise source, with varying stability index $\alpha$ and asymmetry parameter $\beta$. In junctions longer than a critical length, the mean switching time (MST) from superconductive to the resistive state assumes a values independent of the device length. Here, we demonstrate that such a value is direc…

Dynamics of two competing species in the presence of Lévy noise sources

We consider a Lotka-Volterra system of two competing species subject to multiplicative alpha-stable Lévy noise. The interaction parameter between the species is a random process which obeys a stochastic differential equation with a generalized bistable potential in the presence both of a periodic driving term and an additive alpha-stable Lévy noise. We study the species dynamics, which is characterized by two different regimes, exclusion of one species and coexistence of both. We find quasi-periodic oscillations and stochastic resonance phenomenon in the dynamics of the competing species, analysing the role of the Lévy noise sources.

Preliminary Analysis on Correlations between Spatial Distribution of Chlorophyll-a and Experimental Data of Biomass in the Strait of Sicily

This study, using both remotely sensed and measured in situ data, is directed to the analysis of the correlations between the chlorophyll-a concentration and the biomass of sardines and anchovies acoustically evaluated in the Strait of Sicily. This work, inter alia, shows the usefulness of remote observation of seas in determining possible relationships between fish stocks and some oceanographic parameters (Sea Surface Temperature, Chlorophyll-a, Zooplankton).

Noise in biological systems: Phenomenology and theoretical models

Non-Gaussian noise effects in the dynamics of a short overdamped Josephson junction

The role of thermal and non-Gaussian noise on the dynamics of driven short overdamped Josephson junctions is studied. The mean escape time of the junction is investigated considering Gaussian, Cauchy-Lorentz and Levy-Smirnov probability distributions of the noise signals. In these conditions we find resonant activation and the first evidence of noise enhanced stability in a metastable system in the presence of Levy noise. For Cauchy-Lorentz noise source, trapping phenomena and power law dependence on the noise intensity are observed.

The stabilizing effect of volatility in financial markets

In financial markets, greater volatility is usually considered synonym of greater risk and instability. However, large market downturns and upturns are often preceded by long periods where price returns exhibit only small fluctuations. To investigate this surprising feature, here we propose using the mean first hitting time, i.e. the average time a stock return takes to undergo for the first time a large negative or positive variation, as an indicator of price stability, and relate this to a standard measure of volatility. In an empirical analysis of daily returns for $1071$ stocks traded in the New York Stock Exchange, we find that this measure of stability displays nonmonotonic behavior, …

Stochastic modelling of imatinib-treated leukemic cells dynamics

Environmental Metal Pollution Considered as Noise: Effects on the Spatial Distribution of Benthic Foraminifera in two Coastal Marine Areas of Sicily (Southern Italy)

We analyze the spatial distributions of two groups of benthic foraminifera (Adelosina spp. + Quinqueloculina spp. and Elphidium spp.), along Sicilian coast, and their correlation with six different heavy metals, responsible for the pollution. Samples were collected inside the Gulf of Palermo, which has a high level of pollution due to heavy metals, and along the coast of Lampedusa island (Sicily Channel, Southern Mediterranean), which is characterized by unpolluted sea waters. Because of the environmental pollution we find: (i) an anticorrelated spatial behaviour between the two groups of benthic foraminifera analyzed; (ii) an anticorrelated (correlated) spatial behaviour between the first …

Noise with memory, theory and application

On critical properties of the Berry curvature in the Kitaev honeycomb model

We analyse the Kitaev honeycomb model, by means of the Berry curvature with respect to Hamiltonian parameters. We concentrate on the ground-state vortex-free sector, which allows us to exploit an appropriate Fermionisation technique. The parameter space includes a time-reversal breaking term which provides an analytical headway to study the curvature in phases in which it would otherwise vanish. The curvature is then analysed in the limit in which the time-reversal-symmetry-breaking perturbation vanishes. This provides remarkable information about the topological phase transitions of the model. The Berry curvature in itself exhibits no singularities at criticality, nevertheless it distingui…

On quantumness in multi-parameter quantum estimation

In this article we derive a measure of quantumness in quantum multi-parameter estimation problems. We can show that the ratio between the mean Uhlmann Curvature and the Fisher Information provides a figure of merit which estimates the amount of incompatibility arising from the quantum nature of the underlying physical system. This ratio accounts for the discrepancy between the attainable precision in the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters and the precision predicted by the Cram\'er-Rao bound. As a testbed for this concept, we consider a quantum many-body system in thermal equilibrium, and explore the quantum compatibility of the model across its phase diagram.

Nonmonotonic Pattern Formation in Three Species Lotka-Volterra System with Colored Noise

A coupled map lattice of generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of colored multiplicative noise is used to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of three interacting species: one predator and two preys symmetrically competing each other. The correlation of the species concentration over the grid as a function of time and of the noise intensity is investigated. The presence of noise induces pattern formation, whose dimensions show a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the noise intensity. The colored noise induces a greater dimension of the patterns with respect to the white noise case and a shift of the maximum of its area towards higher values of the noise intensity.

RELAXATION PHENOMENA IN CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM SYSTEMS

Relaxation phenomena in three different classical and quantum systems are investigated. First, the role of multiplicative and additive noise in a classical metastable system is analyzed. The mean lifetime of the metastable state shows a nonmonotonicbehavior with a maximum as a function of both the additive and multiplicative noise intensities. In the second system, the simultaneous action of thermal and non-Gaussian noise on the dynamics of an overdamped point Josephson junction is studied. The effect of a Lévy noise generated by a Cauchy–Lorentz distribution on the mean lifetime of the superconductive metastable state, in the presence of a periodic driving, is investigated. We find resonan…

Lévy flight in a two competing species dynamics

Role of sub- and super-Poisson noise sources in population dynamics

In this paper we present a study on pulse noise sources characterized by sub- and super-Poisson statistics. We make a comparison with their uncorrelated counterpart. i.e. pulse noise with Poisson statistics, while showing that the correlation properties of sub- and super-Poisson noise sources can be efficiently applied to population dynamics. Specifically, we consider a termite population, described by a Langevin equation in the presence of a pulse noise source, and we study its dynamics and stability properties for two models. The first one describes a population of several colonies in a new territory with adverse environmental conditions. The second one considers the development of a sing…

Stochastic model for the epitaxial growth of two-dimensional islands in the submonolayer regime

The diffusion-based growth of islands composed of clusters of metal atoms on a substrate is considered in the aggregation regime. A stochastic approach is proposed to describe the dynamics of island growth based on a Langevin equation with multiplicative noise. The distribution of island sizes, obtained as a solution of the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation, is derived. The time-dependence of island growth on its fractal dimension is analysed. The effect of mobility of the small islands on the growth of large islands is considered. Numerical simulations are in a good agreement with theoretical results.

Modelling Bacterial Dynamics in Food Products: Role of Environmental Noise and Interspecific Competition

In this paper we review some results obtained within the context of the predictive microbiology, which is a specific field of the population dynamics. In particular we discuss three models, which exploit tools of statistical mechanics, for bacterial dynamics in food of animal origin. In the first model, the random fluctuating behaviour, experimentally measured, of the temperature is considered. In the second model stochastic differential equations are introduced to take into account the influence of physical and chemical variables, such as temperature, pH and activity water, subject to deterministic and random variations. The third model, which is an extended version of the second one, negl…

Role of noise in a market model with stochastic volatility

We study a generalization of the Heston model, which consists of two coupled stochastic differential equations, one for the stock price and the other one for the volatility. We consider a cubic nonlinearity in the first equation and a correlation between the two Wiener processes, which model the two white noise sources. This model can be useful to describe the market dynamics characterized by different regimes corresponding to normal and extreme days. We analyze the effect of the noise on the statistical properties of the escape time with reference to the noise enhanced stability (NES) phenomenon, that is the noise induced enhancement of the lifetime of a metastable state. We observe NES ef…

Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger-state Generation in Qubit-Chains via a Single Landau-Majorana-Stückelberg-Zener π/2-pulse

A protocol for generating Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states in a system of (Formula presented.) coupled qubits is proposed. The Hamiltonian model assumes (Formula presented.) -wise interactions between the (Formula presented.) qubits and the presence of a controllable time-dependent field acting upon one spin only. The dynamical problem is exactly solved thanks to the symmetries of the Hamiltonian model. The possibility of generating GHZ states simulating our physical scenario under both adiabatic and non-adiabatic conditions is within the reach of the experimentalists. This aspect is discussed in detail.

Lyapunov Coefficient in the Presence of Noise in Metastable Potential

STOCHASTIC DYNAMICS OF TWO PICOPHYTOPLANKTON POPULATIONS IN A REAL MARINE ECOSYSTEM

A stochastic reaction-diffusion-taxis model is analyzed to get the stationary distribution along water column of two species of picophytoplankton, that is picoeukaryotes and Prochlorococcus. The model is valid for weakly mixed waters, typical of the Mediterranean Sea. External random fluctuations are considered by adding a multiplicative Gaussian noise to the dynamical equation of the nutrient concentration. The statistical tests show that shape and magnitude of the theoretical concentration profile exhibit a good agreement with the experimental findings. Finally, we study the effects of seasonal variations on picophytoplankton groups, including an oscillating term in the auxiliary equation…

Detector's quantum backaction effects on a mesoscopic conductor and fluctuation-dissipation relation

When measuring quantum mechanical properties of charge transport in mesoscopic conductors, backaction effects occur. We consider a measurement setup with an elementary quantum circuit, composed of an inductance and a capacitor, as detector of the current flowing in a nearby quantum point contact. A quantum Langevin equation for the detector variable including backaction effects is derived. Differences with the quantum Langevin equation obtained in linear response are pointed out. In this last case, a relation between fluctuations and dissipation is obtained, provided that an effective temperature of the quantum point contact is defined.

Switching times in long-overlap Josephson junctions subject to thermal fluctuations and non-Gaussian noise sources

We investigate the superconducting lifetime of long current-biased Josephson junctions, in the presence of Gaussian and non-Gaussian noise sources. In particular, we analyze the dynamics of a Josephson junction as a function of the noise signal intensity, for different values of the parameters of the system and external driving currents. We find that the mean lifetime of the superconductive state is characterized by nonmonotonic behavior as a function of noise intensity, driving frequency and junction length. We observe that these nonmonotonic behaviours are connected with the dynamics of the junction phase string during the switching towards the resistive state. An important role is played…

Cancer growth dynamics: stochastic models and noise induced effects

In the framework of the Michaelis-Menten (MM) reaction kinetics, we analyze the cancer growth dynamics in the presence of the immune response. We found the coexistence of noise enhanced stability (NES) and resonant activation (RA) phenomena which act in an opposite way with respect to the extinction of the tumor The role of the stochastic resonance (SR) in the case of weak cancer therapy has been analyzed. The evolutionary dynamics of a system of cancerous cells in a model of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is investigated by a Monte Carlo approach. We analyzed the effects of a targeted therapy on the evolutionary dynamics of normal, first-mutant and cancerous cell populations. We show how t…

Numerical investigation of optical heartbeats with external driving forces

The role of harmonic and random external forces in a phenomenological nonlinear model of optical heartbeats is investigated. External forces trigger damped oscillations at the natural frequency of the system and higher harmonics. The numerical results are compared with experimental ones.

Stochastic 0-dimensional Biogeochemical Flux Model: Effect of temperature fluctuations on the dynamics of the biogeochemical properties in a marine ecosystem

Abstract We present a new stochastic model, based on a 0-dimensional version of the well known biogeochemical flux model (BFM), which allows to take into account the temperature random fluctuations present in natural systems and therefore to describe more realistically the dynamics of real marine ecosystems. The study presents a detailed analysis of the effects of randomly varying temperature on the lower trophic levels of the food web and ocean biogeochemical processes. More in detail, the temperature is described as a stochastic process driven by an additive self-correlated Gaussian noise. Varying both correlation time and intensity of the noise source, the predominance of different plank…

Asymptotic regime in N random interacting species

The asymptotic regime of a complex ecosystem with \emph{N}random interacting species and in the presence of an external multiplicative noise is analyzed. We find the role of the external noise on the long time probability distribution of the i-th density species, the extinction of species and the local field acting on the i-th population. We analyze in detail the transient dynamics of this field and the cavity field, which is the field acting on the $i^{th}$ species when this is absent. We find that the presence or the absence of some population give different asymptotic distributions of these fields.

New trends in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics: classical and quantum systems

The main aim of this special issue is to report recent advances and new trends in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics of classical and quantum systems, from both theoretical and experimental points of view, within an interdisciplinary context. In particular, the nonlinear relaxation processes in the dynamics of out-of-equilibrium systems and the role of the metastability and environmental noise will be overviewed. Three main areas of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics will be covered: slow relaxation phenomena and dissipative dynamics; long-range interactions and classical systems; quantum systems. New trends such as quantum thermodynamics and novel types of quantum phase transitions occ…

Pattern formation and spatial correlation induced by the noise in two competing species

We analyze the spatio-temporal patterns of two competing species in the presence of two white noise sources: an additive noise acting on the interaction parameter and a multiplicative noise which affects directly the dynamics of the species densities. We use a coupled map lattice (CML) with uniform initial conditions. We find a nonmonotonic behavior both of the pattern formation and the density correlation as a function of the multiplicative noise intensity.

Anomalous transport effects on switching currents of graphene-based Josephson junctions

We explore the effect of noise on the ballistic graphene-based small Josephson junctions in the framework of the resistively and capacitively shunted model. We use the non-sinusoidal current-phase relation specific for graphene layers partially covered by superconducting electrodes. The noise induced escapes from the metastable states, when the external bias current is ramped, give the switching current distribution, i.e. the probability distribution of the passages to finite voltage from the superconducting state as a function of the bias current, that is the information more promptly available in the experiments. We consider a noise source that is a mixture of two different types of proce…

Statistics of residence time for Lévy flights in unstable parabolic potentials

We analyze the residence time problem for an arbitrary Markovian process describing nonlinear systems without a steady state. We obtain exact analytical results for the statistical characteristics of the residence time. For diffusion in a fully unstable potential profile in the presence of Lévy noise we get the conditional probability density of the particle position and the average residence time. The noise-enhanced stability phenomenon is observed in the system investigated. Results from numerical simulations are in very good agreement with analytical ones.

Statistical Approximation of Fourier Transform-IR Spectroscopy Data for Zinc White Pigment from Twentieth-Century Russian Paintings

We present a statistical model for approximation of experimental Fourier transform-IR spectroscopy (FTIR) data for paint samples from paintings of different ages. The model utilizes random variations in some parameters (initial ageing rate, degree of change in ageing rate and time at which the change occurs). We determine the parameters characterizing variation in the paint composition and the storage conditions for the paintings. The numerical calculation is qualitatively consistent with the experimental data. In the proposed model, changes in the initial composition of the paint and the storage conditions make about the same contribution to the experimentally observed scatter in the data …

Non-volatile memory characteristics of a Ti/HfO2/Pt synaptic device with a crossbar array structure

The resistive switching and synaptic behavior of a fabricated Ti/HfO2/Pt crossbar array device are investigated. The results demonstrated that TiOx layers are created by the movement of oxygen ions during the positive SET process, thereby improving the endurance and multilevel switching behavior of the device. The random properties of SET process were described with the help of stochastic model of memristor based on the length of conductive filament. The analysis of the mean first passage time allows estimating the parameters of the dielectric switching layer such as the activation energy of the diffusive defects, its variation under the influence of the driving voltage and the value of the…

External Noise Effects in Doped Semiconductors Operating Under sub-THz Signals

We study the noise-induced effects on the electron transport dynamics in low-doped n-type GaAs samples by using a Monte Carlo approach. The system is driven by an external periodic electric field in the presence of a random telegraph noise source. The modifications caused by the addition of external fluctuations are investigated by studying the spectral density of the electron velocity fluctuations for different values of the noise parameters. The findings indicate that the diffusion noise in low-doped semiconductors can be reduced by the addition of a fluctuating component to the driving electric field, but the effect critically depends on the features of the external noise source.

Dynamics of Two Picophytoplankton Groups in Mediterranean Sea: Analysis of the Deep Chlorophyll Maximum by a Stochastic Advection-Reaction-Diffusion Model

A stochastic advection-reaction-diffusion model with terms of multiplicative white Gaussian noise, valid for weakly mixed waters, is studied to obtain the vertical stationary spatial distributions of two groups of picophytoplankton, i.e., picoeukaryotes and Prochlorococcus, which account about for 60% of total chlorophyll on average in Mediterranean Sea. By numerically solving the equations of the model, we analyze the one-dimensional spatio-temporal dynamics of the total picophytoplankton biomass and nutrient concentration along the water column at different depths. In particular, we integrate the equations over a time interval long enough, obtaining the steady spatial distributions for th…

Haldane Model at finite temperature

We consider the Haldane model, a 2D topological insulator whose phase is defined by the Chern number. We study its phases as temperature varies by means of the Uhlmann number, a finite temperature generalization of the Chern number. Because of the relation between the Uhlmann number and the dynamical transverse conductivity of the system, we evaluate also the conductivity of the model. This analysis does not show any sign of a phase transition induced by the temperature, nonetheless it gives a better understanding of the fate of the topological phase with the increase of the temperature, and it provides another example of the usefulness of the Uhlmann number as a novel tool to study topolog…

Noise in ecosystems: a short review

Noise, through its interaction with the nonlinearity of the living systems, can give rise to counter-intuitive phenomena such as stochastic resonance, noise-delayed extinction, temporal oscillations, and spatial patterns. In this paper we briefly review the noise-induced effects in three different ecosystems: (i) two competing species; (ii) three interacting species, one predator and two preys, and (iii) N-interacting species. The transient dynamics of these ecosystems are analyzed through generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of multiplicative noise, which models the interaction between the species and the environment. The interaction parameter between the species is random …

Nonlinear relaxation phenomena in metastable condensed matter systems

Nonlinear relaxation phenomena in three different systems of condensed matter are investigated. (i) First, the phase dynamics in Josephson junctions is analyzed. Specifically, a superconductor-graphene-superconductor (SGS) system exhibits quantum metastable states, and the average escape time from these metastable states in the presence of Gaussian and correlated fluctuations is calculated, accounting for variations in the the noise source intensity and the bias frequency. Moreover, the transient dynamics of a long-overlap Josephson junction (JJ) subject to thermal fluctuations and non-Gaussian noise sources is investigated. Noise induced phenomena are observed, such as the noise enhanced s…

Stochastic dynamics of leukemic cells under an intermittent targeted therapy

The evolutionary dynamics of cancerous cell populations in a model of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is investigated in the presence of an intermittent targeted therapy. Cancer development and progression is modeled by simulating the stochastic evolution of initially healthy cells which can experience genetic mutations and modify their reproductive behavior, becoming leukemic clones. Front line therapy for the treatment of patients affected by CML is based on the administration of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, namely imatinib (Gleevec) or, more recently, dasatinib or nilotinib. Despite the fact that they represent the first example of a successful molecular targeted therapy, the development o…

Revisiting the role of top-down and bottom-up controls in stabilisation of nutrient-rich plankton communities

Understanding the conditions for successful control of phytoplankton by zooplankton in eutrophic ecosystems is a highly important research area with a wide implementation of mathematical modelling. Theoretical models generally predict destabilisation of food webs in eutrophic environments with large-amplitude oscillations of population densities which would eventually result in species extinction. On the other hand, these theoretical predic- tions are often at odds with ecological observations demonstrating stable dynamics even for a high nutrient load. This apparent discrepancy is known in the literature as Rosen- zweig’s “paradox of enrichment”. Recent theoretical works emphasize a crucia…

Strongly super-Poisson statistics replaced by a wide-pulse Poisson process: The billiard random generator

Abstract In this paper we present a study on random processes consisting of delta pulses characterized by strongly super-Poisson statistics and calculate its spectral density. We suggest a method for replacing a strongly super-Poisson process with a wide-pulse Poisson process, while demonstrating that these two processes can be set in such a way to have similar spectral densities, the same mean values, and the same correlation times. We also present a billiard system that can be used to generate random pulse noise of arbitrary statistical properties. The particle dynamics is considered in terms of delta and wide pulses simultaneously. The results of numerical experiments with the billiard s…

Noise Induced Phenomena in the Dynamics of Two Competing Species

Noise through its interaction with the nonlinearity of the living systems can give rise to counter-intuitive phenomena. In this paper we shortly review noise induced effects in different ecosystems, in which two populations compete for the same resources. We also present new results on spatial patterns of two populations, while modeling real distributions of anchovies and sardines. The transient dynamics of these ecosystems are analyzed through generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of multiplicative noise, which models the interaction between the species and the environment. We find noise induced phenomena such as quasi-deterministic oscillations, stochastic resonance, noise …

Uhlmann curvature in dissipative phase transitions

We study the mean Uhlmann curvature in fermionic systems undergoing a dissipative driven phase transition. We consider a paradigmatic class of lattice fermion systems in non-equilibrium steady-state of an open system with local reservoirs, which are characterised by a Gaussian fermionic steady state. In the thermodynamical limit, in systems with translational invariance we show that a singular behaviour of the Uhlmann curvature represents a sufficient criterion for criticalities, in the sense of diverging correlation length, and it is not otherwise sensitive to the closure of the Liouvillian dissipative gap. In finite size systems, we show that the scaling behaviour of the mean Uhlmann curv…

Quantum resonant activation

Quantum resonant activation is investigated for the archetype setup of an externally driven two-state (spin-boson) system subjected to strong dissipation by means of both analytical and extensive numerical calculations. The phenomenon of resonant activation emerges in the presence of either randomly fluctuating or deterministic periodically varying driving fields. Addressing the incoherent regime, a characteristic minimum emerges in the mean first passage time to reach an absorbing neighboring state whenever the intrinsic time scale of the modulation matches the characteristic time scale of the system dynamics. For the case of deterministic periodic driving, the first passage time probabili…

Spatio-temporal dynamics of a planktonic system and chlorophyll distribution in a 2D spatial domain: matching model and data

AbstractField data on chlorophyll distribution are investigated in a two-dimensional spatial domain of the Mediterranean Sea by using for phytoplankton abundances an advection-diffusion-reaction model, which includes real values for physical and biological variables. The study exploits indeed hydrological and nutrients data acquired in situ, and includes intraspecific competition for limiting factors, i.e. light intensity and phosphate concentration. As a result, the model allows to analyze how both the velocity field of marine currents and the two components of turbulent diffusivity affect the spatial distributions of phytoplankton abundances in the Modified Atlantic Water, the upper layer…

Superradiant Quantum Phase Transition for an Exactly Solvable Two-Qubit Spin-Boson Model

A spin-boson-like model with two interacting qubits is analysed. The model turns out to be exactly solvable since it is characterized by the exchange symmetry between the two spins. The explicit expressions of eigenstates and eigenenergies make it possible to analytically unveil the occurrence of first-order quantum phase transitions. The latter are physically relevant since they are characterized by abrupt changes in the two-spin subsystem concurrence, in the net spin magnetization and in the mean photon number.

THE ROLE OF NON-GAUSSIAN SOURCES IN THE TRANSIENT DYNAMICS OF LONG JOSEPHSON JUNCTIONS

We analyze the effects of different non-Gaussian noise sources on the transient dynamics of an overdamped long Josephson junction. We find nonmonotonic behavior of the mean escape time as a function of the noise intensity and frequency of the external driving signal for all the noise sources investigated.

Generation of travelling sine-Gordon breathers in noisy long Josephson junctions

The generation of travelling sine-Gordon breathers is achieved through the nonlinear supratransmission effect in a magnetically driven long Josephson junction, in the presence of losses, a current bias, and a thermal noise source. We demonstrate how to exclusively induce breather modes by means of controlled magnetic pulses. A nonmonotonic behavior of the breather-only generation probability is observed as a function of the noise intensity. An experimental protocol providing evidence of the Josephson breather's existence is proposed.

Stochastic model for an ecosystem of cancerous cells in Chronic Myeloid Leukemia

Effects of solar irradiance noise on a complex marine trophic web

AbstractThe analysis of experimental data of the solar irradiance, collected on the marine surface, clearly highlights the intrinsic stochasticity of such an environmental parameter. Given this result, effects of randomly fluctuating irradiance on the population dynamics of a marine ecosystem are studied on the basis of the stochastic 0-dimensional biogeochemical flux model. The noisy fluctuations of the irradiance are formally described as a multiplicative Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, that is a self-correlated Gaussian noise. Nonmonotonic behaviours of the variance of the marine populations’ biomass are found with respect to the intensity and the autocorrelation time of the noise source, ma…

TRANSIENT DYNAMICS AND ASYMPTOTIC POPULATIONS IN A DRIVEN METASTABLE QUANTUM SYSTEM

The transient dynamics of a periodically driven metastable quantum system, interacting with a heat bath, is investigated. The time evolution of the populations, within the framework of the Feynman–Vernon influ- ence functional and in the discrete variable representation, is analyzed by varying the parameters of the external driving. The results display strong non-monotonic behaviour of the populations with respect to the driving frequency.

Geometry of quantum phase transitions

In this article we provide a review of geometrical methods employed in the analysis of quantum phase transitions and non-equilibrium dissipative phase transitions. After a pedagogical introduction to geometric phases and geometric information in the characterisation of quantum phase transitions, we describe recent developments of geometrical approaches based on mixed-state generalisation of the Berry-phase, i.e. the Uhlmann geometric phase, for the investigation of non-equilibrium steady-state quantum phase transitions (NESS-QPTs ). Equilibrium phase transitions fall invariably into two markedly non-overlapping categories: classical phase transitions and quantum phase transitions, whereas i…

Noise effects in biological systems

Supratransmission-induced traveling breathers in long Josephson junctions

The emergence of travelling sine-Gordon breathers due to the nonlinear supratransmission effect is theoretically studied in a long Josephson junction driven by suitable magnetic pulses, taking into account the presence of dissipation, a current bias, and a thermal noise source. The simulations clearly indicate that, depending on the pulse's shape and the values of the main system parameters, such a configuration can effectively yield breather excitations only. Furthermore, a nonmonotonic behavior of the breather-only generation probability is observed as a function of the noise intensity. Finally, the dynamics of the supratransmission-induced breathers is characterized by looking at quantit…

Dynamics of a Quantum Particle in Asymmetric Bistable Potential with Environmental Noise

In this work we analyze the dynamics of a quantum particle subject to an asymmetric bistable potential and interacting with a thermal reservoir. We obtain the time evolution of the population distributions in both energy and position eigenstates of the particle, for different values of the coupling strength with the thermal bath. The calculation is carried out using the Feynman-Vernon functional under the discrete variable representation.

The bistable potential: An archetype for classical and quantum systems

In this work we analyze the transient dynamics of three different classical and quantum systems. First, we consider a classical Brownian particle moving in an asymmetric bistable potential, subject to a multiplicative and additive noise source. We investigate the role of these two noise sources on the life time of the metastable state. A nonmonotonic behavior of the lifetime as a function of both additive and multiplicative noise intensities is found, revealing the phenomenon of noise enhanced stability. Afterward, by using a LotkaVolterra model, the dynamics of two competing species in the presence of Lévy noise sources is analyzed. Quasiperiodic oscillations and stochastic resonance pheno…

Stabilizing effect of driving and dissipation on quantum metastable states

We investigate how the combined effects of strong Ohmic dissipation and monochromatic driving affect the stability of a quantum system with a metastable state. We find that, by increasing the coupling with the environment, the escape time makes a transition from a regime in which it is substantially controlled by the driving, displaying resonant peaks and dips, to a regime of frequency-independent escape time with a peak followed by a steep falloff. The escape time from the metastable state has a nonmonotonic behavior as a function of the thermal-bath coupling, the temperature, and the frequency of the driving. The quantum noise-enhanced stability phenomenon is observed in the investigated …

EFFECTS OF COLORED NOISE IN SHORT OVERDAMPED JOSEPHSON JUNCTION

We investigate the transient dynamics of a short overdamped Josephson junction with a periodic driving signal in the presence of colored noise. We analyze noise induced henomena, specifically resonant activation and noise enhanced stability. We find that the positions both of the minimum of RA and maximum of NES depend on the value of the noise correlation time tau_c. Moreover, in the range where RA is observed, we find a non-monotonic behavior of the mean switching time as a function of the correlation time tau_c.

Noise stabilization effects in models of interdisciplinary physics

Metastability is a generic feature of many nonlinear systems, and the problem of the lifetime of metastable states involves fundamental aspects of nonequilibrium statistical mechanics. The investigation of noise-induced phenomena in far from equilibrium systems is one of the approaches used to understand the behaviour of physical and biological complex systems. The enhancement of the lifetime of metastable states through the noise enhanced stability effect and the role played by the resonant activation phenomenon will be discussed in models of interdisciplinary physics: (i) polymer translocation dynamics; (ii) transient regime of FitzHugh-Nagumo model; (iii) market stability in a nonlinear …

The role of noise on the steady state distributions of phytoplankton populations

The spatio-temporal behaviour of total chlorophyll concentration is investigated in the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea by using a stochastic approach. The study is based on a reaction-diffusion-taxis model, which is used to analyse the dynamics of five phytoplankton groups, responsible for about 80% of the total chlorophyll a inside the euphotic zone of the water column. The analysis is performed by considering: (i) the intraspecific competition of the phytoplanktonic groups for limiting factors, i.e. light intensity and nutrient concentration, (ii) the seasonal changes of environmental variables, and (iii) the random fluctuations of the components of the velocity field and temperature. Speci…

A new approach to modelling the shelf life of Gilthead seabream (Sparus aurata)

Summary A total of 217 Gilthead seabreams were subdivided in four groups, according to four different storage conditions. All fish were evaluated by both Quality Index Method (QIM) and microbiological analysis, sampling skin, gills and flesh, separately. A QIM score predictive system was set by modelling the growth of microflora of skin, gills and flesh and coupling these predictions to each related partial QIM score (QIMSkin, QIMGills, QIMFlesh). The expression of QIM score as a function of bacterial behaviour was carried out by the employment of two coefficients. The predicted mean bacterial concentrations corresponding to the QIM score at 14 days were always near to Log 8 CFU g−1 in the …

Phase dynamics in graphene-based Josephson junctions in the presence of thermal and correlated fluctuations

In this work we study by numerical methods the phase dynamics in ballistic graphene-based short Josephson junctions. The supercurrent through a graphene junction shows a non-sinusoidal phase-dependence, unlike a conventional junction ruled by the well-known d.c. Josephson relation. A superconductor-graphene-superconductor system exhibits superconductive quantum metastable states similar to those present in normal current-biased JJs. We explore the effects of thermal and correlated fluctuations on the escape time from these metastable states, when the system is stimulated by an oscillating bias current. As a first step, the analysis is carried out in the presence of an external Gaussian whit…

Dynamics of a FitzHugh-Nagumo system subjected to autocorrelated noise

We analyze the dynamics of the FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) model in the presence of colored noise and a periodic signal. Two cases are considered: (i) the dynamics of the membrane potential is affected by the noise, (ii) the slow dynamics of the recovery variable is subject to noise. We investigate the role of the colored noise on the neuron dynamics by the mean response time (MRT) of the neuron. We find meaningful modifications of the resonant activation (RA) and noise enhanced stability (NES) phenomena due to the correlation time of the noise. For strongly correlated noise we observe suppression of NES effect and persistence of RA phenomenon, with an efficiency enhancement of the neuronal respo…

Uhlmann number in translational invariant systems

We define the Uhlmann number as an extension of the Chern number, and we use this quantity to describe the topology of 2D translational invariant Fermionic systems at finite temperature. We consider two paradigmatic systems and we study the changes in their topology through the Uhlmann number. Through the linear response theory we linked two geometrical quantities of the system, the mean Uhlmann curvature and the Uhlmann number, to directly measurable physical quantities, i.e. the dynamical susceptibility and to the dynamical conductivity, respectively.

Emission of real phonons due to electron's self-dressing in a covalent crystal

A slow monoelectronic excitation in a covalent crystal at the temperature T=0 is analyzed. The interaction with zero-point longitudinal acoustic phonons leads to the formation of a dressed electronic state at an energy level lower than that of the initial bare state. This aspect of the dressing process is described here by hypothesizing that the excess of energy is released with the emission of real phonons. Specifically, this paper considers the transition probability from the bare monoelectronic state to a dressed state of the electron accompanied by real phonons and a deformation field. The spectrum of the real phonons emitted during the electronic self-dressing is calculated by applying…

Two competing species in super-diffusive dynamical regimes

The dynamics of two competing species within the framework of the generalized Lotka-Volterra equations, in the presence of multiplicative alpha-stable Lévy noise sources and a random time dependent interaction parameter, is studied. The species dynamics is characterized by two different dynamical regimes, exclusion of one species and coexistence of both, depending on the values of the interaction parameter, which obeys a Langevin equation with a periodically fluctuating bistable potential and an additive alpha-stable Lévy noise. The stochastic resonance phenomenon is analyzed for noise sources asymmetrically distributed. Finally, the effects of statistical dependence between multiplicative …

Inquinamento da metalli pesanti in ambiente marino in correlazione con la distribuzione dei foraminiferi bentonici

Population dynamics in the presence of noise for different systems

Ac-locking of thermally-induced sine-Gordon breathers

A complete framework for exciting and detecting thermally-induced, stabilized sine-Gordon breathers in ac-driven long Josephson junctions is developed. The formation of long-time stable breathers locked to the ac source occurs for a sufficiently high temperature. The latter emerges as a powerful control parameter, allowing for the remarkably stable localized modes to appear. Nonmonotonic behaviors of both the breather generation probability and the energy spatial correlations versus the thermal noise strength are found. The junction's resistive switching characteristics provides a clear experimental signature of the breather.

EFFECT OF LOW-FREQUENCY NOISE ON ADIABATIC PASSAGE IN A SUPERCONDUCTING NANOCIRCUIT

Recent experiments have demonstrated coherent phenomena in three-level systems based on superconducting nanocircuits. This opens the possibility to detect Stimulated Raman Adiabatic Passage (STIRAP) in artificial atoms. Low-fequency noise (often 1/f) is one of the main sources of decoherence in these systems, and we study its effect on the transfer efficiency. We propose a way to analyze low frequency fluctuations in terms of fictitious correlated fluctuations of external parameters. We discuss a specific implementation, namely the Quantronium setup of a Cooper-pair box, showing that optimizing the trade-off between efficient coupling and protection against noise may allow us to observe co…

Spectral characteristics of steady-state Lévy flights in confinement potential profiles

The steady-state correlation characteristics of superdiffusion in the form of Levy flights in one-dimensional confinement potential profiles are investigated both theoretically and numerically. Specifically, for Cauchy stable noise we calculate the steady-state probability density function for an infinitely deep rectangular potential well and for a symmetric steep potential well of the type U(x)∞x2m. For these potential profiles and arbitrary Levy index α, we obtain the asymptotic expression of the spectral power density.

Dissipative dynamics in a quantum bistable system: Crossover from weak to strong damping

The dissipative dynamics of a quantum bistable system coupled to a Ohmic heat bath is investigated beyond the spin-boson approximation. Within the path-integral approach to quantum dissipation, we propose an approximation scheme which exploits the separation of time scales between intra- and interwell (tunneling) dynamics. The resulting generalized master equation for the populations in a space localized basis enables us to investigate a wide range of temperatures and system-environment coupling strengths. A phase diagram in the coupling-temperature space is provided to give a comprehensive account of the different dynamical regimes.

Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation in Quantum Liouville Equation

We consider the quantum Liouville equation and give a characterization of the solutions which satisfy the Heisenberg uncertainty relation. We analyze three cases. Initially we consider a particular solution of the quantum Liouville equation: the Wigner transformf(x,v,t) of a generic solutionψ(x;t) of the Schrödinger equation. We give a representation ofψ(x,t) by the Hermite functions. We show that the values of the variances ofxandvcalculated by using the Wigner functionf(x,v,t) coincide, respectively, with the variances of position operatorX^and conjugate momentum operatorP^obtained using the wave functionψ(x,t). Then we consider the Fourier transform of the density matrixρ(z,y,t) =ψ∗(z,t)…

Enhancing Metastability by Dissipation and Driving in an Asymmetric Bistable Quantum System.

The stabilizing effect of quantum fluctuations on the escape process and the relaxation dynamics from a quantum metastable state are investigated. Specifically, the quantum dynamics of a multilevel bistable system coupled to a bosonic Ohmic thermal bath in strong dissipation regime is analyzed. The study is performed by a non-perturbative method based on the real-time path integral approach of the Feynman-Vernon influence functional. We consider a strongly asymmetric double well potential with and without a monochromatic external driving, and with an out-of-equilibrium initial condition. In the absence of driving we observe a nonmonotonic behavior of the escape time from the metastable regi…

Stability under influence of noise with regulated periodicity

A very simple stochastic differential equation with quasi-periodical multiplicative noise is investigated analytically. For fixed noise intensity the system can be stable at high noise periodicity and unstable at low noise periodicity.

Stochastic models for phytoplankton dynamics in Mediterranean Sea

Abstract In this paper, we review some results obtained from three one-dimensional stochastic models, which were used to analyze picophytoplankton dynamics in two sites of the Mediterranean Sea. Firstly, we present a stochastic advection–reaction–diffusion model to describe the vertical spatial distribution of picoeukaryotes in a site of the Sicily Channel. The second model, which is an extended version of the first one, is used to obtain the vertical stationary profiles of two groups of picophytoplankton, i.e. Pelagophytes and Prochlorococcus, in the same marine site as in the previous case. Here, we include intraspecific competition of picophytoplanktonic groups for limiting factors, i.e.…

Spin‐Chain‐Star Systems: Entangling Multiple Chains of Spin Qubits

We consider spin-chain-star systems characterized by N-wise many-body interactions between the spins in each chain and the central one. We show that such systems can be exactly mapped into standard spin-star systems through unitary transformations. Such an approach allows the solution of the dynamic problem of an XX$X X$ spin-chain-star model and transparently shows the emergence of quantum correlations in the system, based on the idea of entanglement between chains.

Mean Escape Time in a System with Stochastic Volatility

We study the mean escape time in a market model with stochastic volatility. The process followed by the volatility is the Cox Ingersoll and Ross process which is widely used to model stock price fluctuations. The market model can be considered as a generalization of the Heston model, where the geometric Brownian motion is replaced by a random walk in the presence of a cubic nonlinearity. We investigate the statistical properties of the escape time of the returns, from a given interval, as a function of the three parameters of the model. We find that the noise can have a stabilizing effect on the system, as long as the global noise is not too high with respect to the effective potential barr…

Transient behavior of a population dynamical model

The transient behavior of an ecosystem with N random interacting species in the presence of a multiplicative noise is analyzed. The multiplicative noise mimics the interaction with the environment. We investigate different asymptotic dynamical regimes and the role of the external noise on the probability distribution of the local field.

Dressed emitters as impurities

Dressed states forming when quantum emitters or atoms couple to a photonic bath underpin a number of phenomena and applications, in particular dispersive effective interactions occurring within photonic bandgaps. Here, we present a compact formulation of the resolvent-based theory for calculating atom-photon dressed states built on the idea that the atom behaves as an effective impurity. This establishes an explicit connection with the standard impurity problem in condensed matter. Moreover, it allows us to formulate and settle in a model-independent context a number of properties previously known only for specific models or not entirely formalized. The framework is next extended to the cas…

Modeling of Sensory Characteristics Based on the Growth of Food Spoilage Bacteria

During last years theoretical works shed new light and proposed new hypothesis on the mechanisms which regulate the time behaviour of biological populations in different natural systems. Despite of this, the role of environmental variables in ecological systems is still an open question. Filling this gap of knowledge is a crucial task for a deeper comprehension of the dynamics of biological populations in real ecosystems. In this work we study how the dynamics of food spoilage bacteria influences the sensory characteristics of fresh fish specimens. This topic is crucial for a better understanding of the role played by the bacterial growth on the organoleptic properties, and for the quality …

Noise-assisted persistence and recovery of memory state in a memristive spiking neuromorphic network

Abstract We investigate the constructive role of an external noise signal, in the form of a low-rate Poisson sequence of pulses supplied to all inputs of a spiking neural network, consisting in maintaining for a long time or even recovering a memory trace (engram) of the image without its direct renewal (or rewriting). In particular, this unique dynamic property is demonstrated in a single-layer spiking neural network consisting of simple integrate-and-fire neurons and memristive synaptic weights. This is carried out by preserving and even fine-tuning the conductance values of memristors in terms of dynamic plasticity, specifically spike-timing-dependent plasticity-type, driven by overlappi…

Role of colored noise in the patterns formation of a Lotka-Volterra system

Impiego di un modello predittivo per la microflora del salame S. Angelo in corso di asciugature

The authors carried out a study in order to apply an interspecific competition model to predict the microflora behaviour of S.Angelo IGP salami during the ripening. They consider 3 bacterial population (Lactic Acid Bacteria, Enterobacteria and Listeria monocytogenes – LAB, Ent and Lmo) using the observed curves obtained in a previous work as validation. The model applied setting to 0 all interaction terms does not fit the observed curves while the introduction of 3 interaction terms (betaLmo/LAB = 0.65; betaEnt/LAB = 0.4; betaLmo/Ent = 0.18) produce a good agreement with the observed behaviour of all populations.

Josephson-based Threshold Detector for Lévy-Distributed Current Fluctuations

We propose a threshold detector for Lévy-distributed fluctuations based on a Josephson junction. The Lévy-noise current added to a linearly ramped bias current results in clear changes in the distribution of switching currents out of the zero-voltage state of the junction. We observe that the analysis of the cumulative distribution function of the switching currents supplies information on both the characteristics' shape parameter α of the Lévy statistics. Moreover, we discuss a theoretical model, which allows characteristic features of the Lévy fluctuations to be extracted from a measured distribution of switching currents. In view of these results, this system can effectively find an appl…

Incompatibility in Multi-Parameter Quantum Metrology with Fermionic Gaussian States

In this article we derive a closed form expression for the incompatibility condition in multi-parameter quantum metrology when the reference states are Fermionic Gaussian states. Together with the quantum Fisher information, the knowledge of the compatibility condition provides a way of designing optimal measurement strategies for multi-parameter quantum estimation. Applications range from quantum metrology with thermal states to non-equilibrium steady states with Fermionic and spin systems.

Moment equations in a Lotka-Volterra extended system with time correlated noise,

Metrology and multipartite entanglement in measurement-induced phase transition

Measurement-induced phase transition arises from the competition between a deterministic quantum evolution and a repeated measurement process. We explore the measurement-induced phase transition through the Quantum Fisher Information in two different metrological scenarios. We demonstrate through the scaling behavior of the quantum Fisher information the transition of the multi-partite entanglement across the phases. In analogy with standard quantum phase transition, we reveal signature of a measurement-induced phase transition in the non-analytic behaviour of the quantum Fisher information as the measurement strength approaches the critical value. Our results offer novel insights into the …

A novel method to simulate the 3D chlorophyll distribution in marine oligotrophic waters

Abstract A 3D advection-diffusion-reaction model is proposed to investigate the abundance of phytoplankton in a difficult-to-access ecosystem such as the Gulf of Sirte (southern Mediterranean Sea) characterized by oligotrophic waters. The model exploits experimentally measured environmental variables to reproduce the dynamics of four populations that dominate phytoplankton community in the studied area: Synechococcus, Prochlorococcus HL, Prochlorococcus LL and picoeukaryotes. The theoretical results obtained for phytoplankton abundances are converted into chl-a and Dvchl-a concentrations, and the simulated vertical chlorophyll profiles are compared to the corresponding experimentally acquir…

Enhancement of the Lifetime of Metastable States in Er-Doped Si Nanocrystals by External Colored Noise

The changes in the lifetime of a metastable energy level in Er-doped Si nanocrystals in the presence of an external source of colored noise are analyzed for different values of noise intensity and correlation time. Exciton dynamics is simulated by a set of phenomenological rate equations which take into account all the possible phenomena inherent in the energy states of Si nanocrystals and Er^{3+} ions in the host material of Si oxide. Electronic deexcitation is studied by examining the decay of the initial population of the Er atoms in the first excitation level 4I_{13/2} through fluorescence and cooperative energy transfer upconversion. Our results show that the deexcitation process of th…

Role of the dichotomous noise in time evolution of two competing species

Study on the application of an interspecific competition model for the prediction of microflora behaviour during the fermentation process of S. Angelo PGI salami.

The use of predictive microbiology models able to evaluate bacterial behaviour as a function of environmental conditions and, at the same time, of natural microflora competition was considered by several authors with different approaches. Some authors modelled bacterial competition as a function of metabolic product with particular regard to lactic acid and modelled interspecific bacterial competition introducing a term into a conventional primary predictive model, which gives account for the interaction between two populations, so that they inhibit each other to the same extent that they inhibit their own growth.

Role of the Colored Noise in Spatio-Temporal Behavior of Two Competing Species

We study the spatial distributions of two randomly interacting species, in the presence of an external multiplicative colored noise. The dynamics of the ecosystem is described by a coupled map lattice model. We find a nonmonotonic behavior in the formation of large scale spatial correlations as a function of the multiplicative colored noise intensity. This behavior is shifted towards higher values of the noise intensity for increasing correlation time of the noise.

Dynamics of a Spatially Extended System by Moment Equations

Emission of real phonons due to electron’s self-dressing in a covalent crystal

A slow monoelectronic excitation in a covalent crystal at the temperature T=0 is analyzed. The interaction with zero-point longitudinal acoustic phonons leads to the formation of a dressed electronic state at an energy level lower than that of the initial bare state. This aspect of the dressing process is described here by hypothesizing that the excess of energy is released with the emission of real phonons. Specifically, this paper considers the transition probability from the bare monoelectronic state to a dressed state of the electron accompanied by real phonons and a deformation field. The spectrum of the real phonons emitted during the electronic self-dressing is calculated by applying…

Predator population depending on lemming cycles

In this paper, a Langevin equation for predator population with multiplicative correlated noise is analyzed. The noise source, which is a nonnegative random pulse noise with regulated periodicity, corresponds to the prey population cycling. The increase of periodicity of noise affects the average predator density at the stationary state.

Noise-induced effects in nonlinear relaxation of condensed matter systems

Abstract Noise-induced phenomena characterise the nonlinear relaxation of nonequilibrium physical systems towards equilibrium states. Often, this relaxation process proceeds through metastable states and the noise can give rise to resonant phenomena with an enhancement of lifetime of these states or some coherent state of the condensed matter system considered. In this paper three noise induced phenomena, namely the noise enhanced stability, the stochastic resonant activation and the noise-induced coherence of electron spin, are reviewed in the nonlinear relaxation dynamics of three different systems of condensed matter: (i) a long-overlap Josephson junction (JJ) subject to thermal fluctuat…

Analysis of the vertical distribution in a model of phytoplankton dynamics

Phytoplankton often faces the dilemma of living in contrasting gradients of two essential resources: the light that comes from above and nutrients that are often supplied from below. In poorly mixed water columns, algae can be heterogeneously distributed, with thin layers of biomass found on the surface, in depth, or on the sediment surface. Here, we show that these patterns can result from intraspecific competition between light and nutrients. First, we present numerical solutions of a reaction-diffusion-taxis model for phytoplankton, nutrients and light. We argue that motile phytoplankton can form a thin layer under poorly mixed conditions. The numerical solution of this model indicates t…

Spatio-temporal behaviour of the deep chlorophyll maximum in Mediterranean Sea: Development of a stochastic model for picophytoplankton dynamics

In this paper, by using a stochastic reaction-diffusion-taxis model, we analyze the picophytoplankton dynamics in the basin of the Mediterranean Sea, characterized by poorly mixed waters. The model includes intraspecific competition of picophytoplankton for light and nutrients. The multiplicative noise sources present in the model account for random fluctuations of environmental variables. Phytoplankton distributions obtained from the model show a good agreement with experimental data sampled in two different sites of the Sicily Channel. The results could be extended to analyze data collected in different sites of the Mediterranean Sea and to devise predictive models for phytoplankton dynam…

Evidence of stochastic resonance in the mating behavior of Nezara viridula (L.)

We investigate the role of the noise in the mating behavior between individuals of Nezara viridula (L.), by analyzing the temporal and spectral features of the non-pulsed type female calling song emitted by single individuals. We have measured the threshold level for the signal detection, by performing experiments with the calling signal at different intensities and analyzing the insect response by directionality tests performed on a group of male individuals. By using a sub-threshold signal and an acoustic Gaussian noise source, we have investigated the insect response for different levels of noise, finding behavioral activation for suitable noise intensities. In particular, the percentage…

Lifetime of the superconductive state in short and long Josephson junctions

We study the transient statistical properties of short and long Josephson junctions under the influence of thermal and correlated fluctuations. In particular, we investigate the lifetime of the superconductive metastable state finding the presence of noise induced phenomena. For short Josephson junctions we investigate the lifetime as a function both of the frequency of the current driving signal and the noise intensity and we find how these noise-induced effects are modified by the presence of a correlated noise source. For long Josephson junctions we integrate numerically the sine-Gordon equation calculating the lifetime as a function of the length of the junction both for inhomogeneous a…

Josephson-junction-based axion detection through resonant activation

We discuss the resonant activation phenomenon on a Josephson junction due to the coupling of the Josephson system with axions. We show how such an effect can be exploited for axion detection. A nonmonotonic behavior, with a minimum, of the mean switching time from the superconducting to the resistive state versus the ratio of the axion energy and the Josephson plasma energy is found. We demonstrate how variations in switching times make it possible to detect the presence of the axion field. An experimental protocol for observing axions through their coupling with a Josephson system is proposed.

Cyclic Fluctuations, Climatic Changes and Role of Noise in Planktonic Foraminifera in the Mediterranean Sea

Relaxation dynamics in the presence of pulse multiplicative noise sources with different correlation properties

The relaxation dynamics of a system described by a Langevin equation with pulse multiplicative noise sources with different correlation properties is considered. The solution of the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation is derived for Gaussian white noise. Moreover, two pulse processes with regulated periodicity are considered as a noise source: the dead-time-distorted Poisson process and the process with fixed time intervals, which is characterized by an infinite correlation time. We find that the steady state of the system is dependent on the correlation properties of the pulse noise. An increase of the noise correlation causes the decrease of the mean value of the solution at the steady s…

Multiparameter quantum critical metrology

Single parameter estimation is known to benefit from extreme sensitivity to parameter changes in quantum critical systems. However, the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters is generally limited due to the incompatibility arising from the quantum nature of the underlying system. A key question is whether quantum criticality may also play a positive role in reducing the incompatibility in the simultaneous estimation of multiple parameters. We argue that this is generally the case and verify this prediction in paradigmatic quantum many-body systems close to first and second order phase transitions. The antiferromagnetic and ferromagnetic 1-D Ising chain with both transverse and longi…

Breather dynamics in a stochastic sine-Gordon equation: evidence of noise-enhanced stability

The dynamics of sine-Gordon breathers is studied in the presence of dissipative and stochastic perturbations. Taking a stationary breather with a random phase value as the initial state, the performed simulations demonstrate that a spatially-homogeneous noisy source can make the oscillatory excitation more stable, i.e., it enables the latter to last significantly longer than it would in a noise-free scenario. Both the frequency domain and the localization of energy are examined to document the effectiveness of the noise-enhanced stability phenomenon, which emerges as a nonmonotonic behavior of an average characteristic time for the breather as a function of the noise intensity. The influenc…

Finite-temperature geometric properties of the Kitaev honeycomb model

We study finite temperature topological phase transitions of the Kitaev's spin honeycomb model in the vortex-free sector with the use of the recently introduced mean Uhlmann curvature. We employ an appropriate Fermionisation procedure to study the system as a two-band p-wave superconductor described by a BdG Hamiltonian. This allows to study relevant quantities such as Berry and mean Uhlmann curvatures in a simple setting. More specifically, we consider the spin honeycomb in the presence of an external magnetic field breaking time reversal symmetry. The introduction of such an external perturbation opens a gap in the phase of the system characterised by non-Abelian statistics, and makes the…

Can a mathematical model of mass extinctions do without environmental noise?: Comment on "Knowledge gaps and missing links in understanding mass extinctions: Can mathematical modeling help?" by Ivan Sudakow et al

No abstract available

A stochastic interspecific competition model to predict the behaviour of Listeria monocytogenes in the fermentation process of a traditional Sicilian salami

The present paper discusses the use of modified Lotka-Volterra equations in order to stochastically simulate the behaviour of Listeria monocytogenes and Lactic Acid Bacteria (LAB) during the fermentation period (168 h) of a typical Sicilian salami. For this purpose, the differential equation system is set considering T, pH and aw as stochastic variables. Each of them is governed by dynamics that involve a deterministic linear decrease as a function of the time t and an "additive noise" term which instantaneously mimics the fluctuations of T, pH and aw. The choice of a suitable parameter accounting for the interaction of LAB on L. monocytogenes as well as the introduction of appropriate nois…

Population Dynamics of N random interacting species with multiplicative noise

DOSE DEPENDENT SURVIVAL RESPONSE IN CHRONIC MYELOID LEUKEMIA UNDER CONTINUOUS AND PULSED TARGETED THERAPY

A simulative study of cancer growth dynamics in patients affected by Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML), under the effect of a targeted dosedependent continuous or pulsed therapy, is presented. We have developed a model for the dynamics of CML in which thestochastic evolution of white blood cell populations are simulated by adopting a Monte Carlo approach. Several scenarios in the evolutionary dynamics of white blood cells, as a consequence of the efficacy of the different modelled therapies, pulsed or continuous, are described. The best results, in terms of a permanent disappearance of the leukemic phenotype, are achieved with a continuous therapy and higher dosage. However, our findings demon…

Cyclic fluctuations, climatic changes and role of noise in planktonic foraminifera in the Mediterranean Sea

The study of Planktonic Foraminifera abundances permits to obtain climatic curves on the basis of percentage ratio between tropical and temperate/polar forms. Climatic changes were controlled by several phenomena as: (i) Milankovitch's cycles, produced by variations of astronomical parameters such as precession, obliquity and eccentricity; (ii) continental geodynamic evolution and orogenic belt; (iii) variations of atmospheric and oceanic currents; (iv) volcanic eruptions; (v) meteor impacts. But while astronomical parameters have a quasi-regular periodicity, the other phenomena can be considered as "noise signal" in natural systems. The interplay between cyclical astronomical variations, t…

Asymptotic Regime and Statistics of Extinction in Random Interacting Species

Noise influence on correlated activities in a modular neuronal network: From synapses to functional connectivity

In this work we propose taking noise into account when modeling the neuronal activity in a correlation-based type network. Volume transmission effects on connectivity are considered. As a result, an individual module can be set in an "activated" state via noise produced by the remaining modules. The stochastic approach could provide a new insight into the relation between functional and anatomical connectivity.

Monte Carlo analysis of polymer translocation with deterministic and noisy electric fields

AbstractPolymer translocation through the nanochannel is studied by means of a Monte Carlo approach, in the presence of a static or oscillating external electric voltage. The polymer is described as a chain molecule according to the two-dimensional “bond fluctuation model”. It moves through a piecewise linear channel, which mimics a nanopore in a biological membrane. The monomers of the chain interact with the walls of the channel, modelled as a reflecting barrier. We analyze the polymer dynamics, concentrating on the translocation time through the channel, when an external electric field is applied. By introducing a source of coloured noise, we analyze the effect of correlated random fluct…

Stepping molecular motor amid Lévy white noise

We consider a model of a stepping molecular motor consisting of two connected heads. Directional motion of the stepper takes place along a one-dimensional track. Each head is subject to a periodic potential without spatial reflection symmetry. When the potential for one head is switched on, it is switched off for the other head. Additionally, the system is subject to the influence of symmetric, white Lévy noise that mimics the action of external random forcing. The stepper exhibits motion with a preferred direction which is examined by analyzing the median of the displacement of a midpoint between the positions of the two heads. We study the modified dynamics of the stepper by numerical sim…

Volatility Effects on the Escape Time in Financial Market Models

We shortly review the statistical properties of the escape times, or hitting times, for stock price returns by using different models which describe the stock market evolution. We compare the probability function (PF) of these escape times with that obtained from real market data. Afterwards we analyze in detail the effect both of noise and different initial conditions on the escape time in a market model with stochastic volatility and a cubic nonlinearity. For this model we compare the PF of the stock price returns, the PF of the volatility and the return correlation with the same statistical characteristics obtained from real market data.

classical and quantum systems are investigated. First, the role of multiplicative and additive noise in a classical metastable system is analyzed. The mean lifetime of the metastable state shows a nonmonotonic behavior with a maximum as a function of both the additive and multiplicative noise intensities. In the second system, the simultaneous action of thermal and non-Gaussian noise on the dynamics of an overdamped point Josephson junction is studied. The eect of a Levy noise generated by a Cauchy‐Lorentz distribution on the mean lifetime of the superconductive metastable state, in the presence of a periodic driving, is investigated. We find resonant activation and noise enhanced stability…

Volatility effects on the escape time in financial markets models

Nonstationary distributions and relaxation times in a stochastic model of memristor

We propose a stochastic model for a memristive system by generalizing known approaches and experimental results. We validate our theoretical model by experiments carried out on a memristive device based on multilayer structure. In the framework of the proposed model we obtain the exact analytic expressions for stationary and nonstationary solutions. We analyze the equilibrium and non-equilibrium steady-state distributions of the internal state variable of the memristive system and study the influence of fluctuations on the resistive switching, including the relaxation time to the steady-state. The relaxation time shows a nonmonotonic dependence, with a minimum, on the intensity of the fluct…

New analytical approach to analyze the nonlinear regime of stochastic resonance

We propose some approximate methods to explore the nonlinear regime of the stochastic resonance phenomenon. These approximations correspond to different truncation schemes of cumulants. We compare the theoretical results for the signal power amplification, obtained by using ordinary cumulant truncation schemes, that is Gaussian and excess approximations, the modified two-state approximation with those obtained by numerical simulations of the Langevin equation describing the dynamics of the system.

Analysis of ecological shifts in the two‐age structured population model with Allee effect and environmental noise

We study noise-induced transformations in the two-age structured population model with the Allee effect and environmental fluctuations. In this bistable model, ecological shifts are associated mathematically with random transitions between basins of coexisting attractors. The following phenomena are revealed and studied: (i) noise-induced extinction, (ii) stochastic regeneration, and (iii) excitement of random mixed-mode oscillations. Constructive abilities of the analytical method of confidence domains are demonstrated in the parametric study of these phenomena.

Multi-State Quantum Dissipative Dynamics in Sub-Ohmic Environment: The Strong Coupling Regime

We study the dissipative quantum dynamics and the asymptotic behavior of a particle in a bistable potential interacting with a sub-Ohmic broadband environment. The reduced dynamics, in the intermediate to strong dissipation regime, is obtained beyond the two-level system approximation by using a real-time path integral approach. We find a crossover dynamic regime with damped intra-well oscillations and incoherent tunneling and a completely incoherent regime at strong damping. Moreover, a nonmonotonic behavior of the left/right well population difference is found as a function of the damping strength.

Voltage drop across Josephson junctions for L\'evy noise detection

We propose to characterize L\'evy-distributed stochastic fluctuations through the measurement of the average voltage drop across a current-biased Josephson junction. We show that the noise induced switching process in the Josephson washboard potential can be exploited to reveal and characterize L\'evy fluctuations, also if embedded in a thermal noisy background. The measurement of the average voltage drop as a function of the noise intensity allows to infer the value of the stability index that characterizes L\'evy-distributed fluctuations. An analytical estimate of the average velocity in the case of a L\'evy-driven escape process from a metastable state well agrees with the numerical calc…

Correlated thermal fluctuations in short and long Josephson junctions

Stochastic resonance and noise delayed extinction in a model of two competing species

We study the role of the noise in the dynamics of two competing species. We consider generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of a multiplicative noise, which models the interaction between the species and the environment. The interaction parameter between the species is a random process which obeys a stochastic differential equation with a generalized bistable potential in the presence of a periodic driving term, which accounts for the environment temperature variation. We find noise-induced periodic oscillations of the species concentrations and stochastic resonance phenomenon. We find also a nonmonotonic behavior of the mean extinction time of one of the two competing species…

Stabilization Effects of Dichotomous Noise on the Lifetime of theSuperconducting State in a Long Josephson Junction

We investigate the superconducting lifetime of a long overdamped current-biased Josephson junction, in the presence of telegraph noise sources. The analysis is performed by randomly choosing the initial condition for the noise source. However, in order to investigate how the initial value of the dichotomous noise affects the phase dynamics, we extend our analysis using two different fixed initial values for the source of random fluctuations. In our study, the phase dynamics of the Josephson junction is analyzed as a function of the noise signal intensity, for different values of the parameters of the system and external driving currents. We find that the mean lifetime of the superconductive…

Noise effects in two different biological systems

We investigate the role of the colored noise in two biological systems: (i) adults of Nezara viridula (L.) (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae), and (ii) polymer translocation. In the first system we analyze, by directionality tests, the response of N. viridula individuals to subthreshold signals plus noise in their mating behaviour. The percentage of insects that react to the subthreshold signal shows a nonmonotonic behaviour, characterized by the presence of a maximum, as a function of the noise intensity. This is the signature of the non-dynamical stochastic resonance phenomenon. By using a “soft” threshold model we find that the maximum of the input-output cross correlation occurs in the same ra…

Moment Equations for a Spatially Extended System of Two Competing Species

The dynamics of a spatially extended system of two competing species in the presence of two noise sources is studied. A correlated dichotomous noise acts on the interaction parameter and a multiplicative white noise affects directly the dynamics of the two species. To describe the spatial distribution of the species we use a model based on Lotka-Volterra (LV) equations. By writing them in a mean field form, the corresponding moment equations for the species concentrations are obtained in Gaussian approximation. In this formalism the system dynamics is analyzed for different values of the multiplicative noise intensity. Finally by comparing these results with those obtained by direct simulat…

Stochastic acceleration in generalized squared Bessel processes

We analyze the time behavior of generalized squared Bessel processes, which are useful for modeling the relevant scales of stochastic acceleration problems. These nonstationary stochastic processes obey a Langevin equation with a non-Gaussian multiplicative noise. We obtain the long-time asymptotic behavior of the probability density function for non-Gaussian white and colored noise sources. We find that the functional form of the probability density functions is independent of the statistics of the noise source considered. Theoretical results are in good agreement with those obtained by numerical simulations of the Langevin equation with pulse noise sources.

Radiative emission due to atomic self-dressing in QED

We study the radiative emission due to the self-dressing of a two-level atom, initially in its bare ground state, interacting with the zero-point electromagnetic field. Evolution in time leads to the formation of a dressed ground state of lower energy. This energy difference between bare and dressed ground state is taken into account by the emission of real photons. In order to describe this aspect of the self-dressing process we study the transition probability amplitude from the initial bare state to an asymptotic state consisting of the atom in its dressed ground state plus some real photons. Adopting nonperturbative techniques based on the resolvent method we find that the bare-dressed …

Stability in a System subject to Noise with Regulated Periodicity

The stability of a simple dynamical system subject to multiplicative one-side pulse noise with hidden periodicity is investigated both analytically and numerically. The stability analysis is based on the exact result for the characteristic functional of the renewal pulse process. The influence of the memory effects on the stability condition is analyzed for two cases: (i) the dead-time-distorted poissonian process, and (ii) the renewal process with Pareto distribution. We show that, for fixed noise intensity, the system can be stable when the noise is characterized by high periodicity and unstable at low periodicity.

Population dynamics with Lévy noise source

Stabilization by dissipation and stochastic resonant activation in quantum metastable systems

In this tutorial paper we present a comprehensive review of the escape dynamics from quantum metastable states in dissipative systems and related noise-induced effects. We analyze the role of dissipation and driving in the escape process from quantum metastable states with and without an external driving force, starting from a nonequilibrium initial condition. We use the Caldeira–Leggett model and a non-perturbative theoretical technique within the Feynman–Vernon influence functional approach in strong dissipation regime. In the absence of driving, we find that the escape time from the metastable region has a nonmonotonic behavior versus the system-bath coupling and the temperature, produci…

Quantum dissipative dynamics of a bistable system in the sub-Ohmic to super-Ohmic regime

We investigate the quantum dynamics of a multilevel bistable system coupled to a bosonic heat bath beyond the perturbative regime. We consider different spectral densities of the bath, in the transition from sub-Ohmic to super-Ohmic dissipation, and different cutoff frequencies. The study is carried out by using the real-time path integral approach of the Feynman-Vernon influence functional. We find that, in the crossover dynamical regime characterized by damped \emph{intrawell} oscillations and incoherent tunneling, the short time behavior and the time scales of the relaxation starting from a nonequilibrium initial condition depend nontrivially on the spectral properties of the heat bath.

Symmetric logarithmic derivative of Fermionic Gaussian states

In this article we derive a closed form expression for the symmetric logarithmic derivative of Fermionic Gaussian states. This provides a direct way of computing the quantum Fisher Information for Fermionic Gaussian states. Applications ranges from quantum Metrology with thermal states and non-equilibrium steady states with Fermionic many-body systems.

Intermittent targeted therapies and stochastic evolution in patients affected by chronic myeloid leukemia

Front line therapy for the treatment of patients affected by chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is based on the administration of tyrosine kinase inhibitors, namely imatinib or, more recently, axitinib. Although imatinib is highly effective and represents an example of a successful molecular targeted therapy, the appearance of resistance is observed in a proportion of patients, especially those in advanced stages. In this work, we investigate the appearance of resistance in patients affected by CML, by modeling the evolutionary dynamics of cancerous cell populations in a simulated patient treated by an intermittent targeted therapy. We simulate, with the Monte Carlo method, the stochastic evolu…

Stochastic dynamics and mean field approach in a system of three interacting species

The spatio-temporal dynamics of three interacting species, two preys and one predator, in the presence of two different kinds of noise sources is studied. To describe the spatial distributions of the species we use a model based on Lotka-Volterra equations. A correlated dichotomous noise acts on \beta, the interaction parameter between the two preys, and a multiplicative white noise affects directly the dynamics of each one of the three species. We study the time behaviour of the three species in single site for different values of the multiplicative noise intensity, finding noise-induced oscillations of the three species densities with an anticorrelated behaviour of the two preys. Afterwar…

Two-species model for spatial distributions of sardine and anchovy: A comparison with real data

We present a study of pattern formation in a set of two coupled equations modeling two competing species. We consider generalized Lotka-Volterra equations in the presence of a multiplicative noise which models the interaction between the species and the environment. The interaction parameter between the species is a random process which obeys a stochastic differential equation with a generalized bistable potential in the presence of a periodic driving term, which accounts for the environment temperature variation.We find noise-induced spatial patterns with strong anti-correlation between the two species. We compare our theoretical results with the experimental data of the spatial distributi…

Stochastic resonance in a trapping overdamped monostable system.

The response of a trapping overdamped monostable system to a harmonic perturbation is analyzed, in the context of stochastic resonance phenomenon. We consider the dynamics of a Brownian particle moving in a piecewise linear potential with a white Gaussian noise source. Based on linear-response theory and Laplace transform technique, analytical expressions of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and signal power amplification (SPA) are obtained. We find that the SNR is a nonmonotonic function of the noise intensity, while the SPA is monotonic. Theoretical results are compared with numerical simulations.

Hitting Time Distributions in Financial Markets

We analyze the hitting time distributions of stock price returns in different time windows, characterized by different levels of noise present in the market. The study has been performed on two sets of data from US markets. The first one is composed by daily price of 1071 stocks trade for the 12-year period 1987-1998, the second one is composed by high frequency data for 100 stocks for the 4-year period 1995-1998. We compare the probability distribution obtained by our empirical analysis with those obtained from different models for stock market evolution. Specifically by focusing on the statistical properties of the hitting times to reach a barrier or a given threshold, we compare the prob…

Noise Induced Phenomena in Lotka-Volterra Systems

We study the time evolution of two ecosystems in the presence of external noise and climatic periodical forcing by a generalized Lotka-Volterra (LV) model. In the first ecosystem, composed by two competing species, we find noise induced phenomena such as: (i) quasi deterministic oscillations, (ii) stochastic resonance, (iii) noise delayed extinction and (iv) spatial patterns. In the second ecosystem, composed by three interacting species (one predator and two preys), using a discrete model of the LV equations we find that the time evolution of the spatial patterns is strongly dependent on the initial conditions of the three species.

Evolutionary dynamics of imatinib-treated leukemic cells by stochastic approach

The evolutionary dynamics of a system of cancerous cells in a model of chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is investigated by a statistical approach. Cancer progression is explored by applying a Monte Carlo method to simulate the stochastic behavior of cell reproduction and death in a population of blood cells which can experience genetic mutations. In CML front line therapy is represented by the tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib which strongly affects the reproduction of leukemic cells only. In this work, we analyze the effects of a targeted therapy on the evolutionary dynamics of normal, first-mutant and cancerous cell populations. Several scenarios of the evolutionary dynamics of imatinib-tr…

Quantum Relaxation Time in Asymmetric Bistable Potential

Quantum tunneling effect occurs often in condensed matter physics, examples are JJs, heteronanostructures, etc.. The tunneling effect plays an important role in the nonlinear relaxation time from a metastable state in an open quantum system, interacting with a thermal bath. Symmetrical and asymmetric bistable systems are good quantum model systems for analysis of the "superconducting quantum bits" and decoherence phenomena. To obtain very long coherence times in the presence of interaction between the qubit and the noisy environment is one of the greatest challenges of physics. The inf1uence of the environment in quantum tunneling has been in the focus of intense research over the last year…

Transient behavior of a population dynamical model

Effect of broadband noise on adiabatic passage in superconducting nanocircuits

With the rapid technological progress in quantum-state engineering in superconducting devices there is an increasing demand for techniques of quantum control. Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) is a powerful method in quantum optics which has remained largely unknown to solid-state physicists. It is used to achieve highly efficient and controlled population transfer in (discrete) multilevel quantum systems[1]. Apart from other potential applications in solid-state physics, adiabatic passage offers interesting possibilities to manipulate qubit circuits, in particular for the generation of nonclassical states in nanomechanical or electromagnetic resonators[2]. In this contribution, w…

Metastability and Relaxation in Quantum and Mesoscopic Systems

The transient dynamics and the relaxation of three quantum and mesoscopic systems are investigated. In particular we analyze: (i) a long Josephson junction (LJJ) driven by a non-Gaussian Lévy noise current; (ii) a metastable quantum dissipative system driven by an external periodical driving; and (iii) the electron spin relaxation process in n-type GaAs crystals driven by a fluctuating electric field. Specifically, in the first system the LJJ phase evolution is described by the perturbed sine-Gordon equation. We find the noise enhanced stability and resonant activation phenomena, by investigating the mean escape time as a function of the bias current frequency, noise intensity and length of…

Spatio-temporal behaviour of five picophytoplankton populations in Tyrrhe- nian Sea: Model and data

Recent works presented detailed analyses of spatio-temporal dynamics in marine ecosystems, reproducing real vertical distributions of phytoplankton biomass. These study however do not take into account the changes in environmental variables. On the contrary, seasonal variations can influence considerably the primary production, i.e. phytoplankton biomass, in marine ecosystems, determining significative consequences in the whole food chain, in particular fish species, whose growth is mainly explained by seasonal changes in the chlorophyll concentration, a marker of phytoplankton species. Here we present a one-dimensional reaction-diffusion-taxis model to describe the spatio-temporal dynamics…

Stochastic modelling of imatinib-treated leukemic cell dynamics

Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is a slowly progressing cancer that makes the body produce too many cancerous myeloid white blood cells. The molecular characteristics of CML is the presence of a Philadelphia (Ph) chromosome, created by a reciprocal translocation of chromosomes 9 and 22 which generates the fusion oncogene BCR-ABL. The introduction of the ABL tyrosine kinase inhibitor imatinib (Gleevec) for the treatment of CML represents the first example of a successful targeted therapy. Despite its striking efficacy, however, the developement of resistance to imatinib is observed in a proportion of patients, expecially those with advanced-stage CML. In the present work, the dynamics of the …

Transient dynamics in driven long Josephson junctions.

The switching time from the superconductive metastable state of a long Josephson junction (LJJ)[1] is computationally analyzed in the framework of the perturbed sine-Gordon equation. The model includes an external bias current term and a stochastic noise source, i.e. a Lévy noise term. The effects of this noise on the mean escape time (MET) from the superconductive state are analyzed. The investigation is performed by considering a wide range of values of system parameters and different noise statistics: Gaussian, Cauchy-Lorentz and Lévy-Smirnov[2]. We found evidence of well known noise induced phenomena on the MET behavior, that is the noise enhanced stability (NES) and resonant activation…

Moment equations in a system of three interacting species subject to colored noise

We study the effects of the colored noise on a Lotka-Volterra system of three interacting species, namely two preys and one predator, in a two-dimensional domain. The three species are affected by an external multiplicative time correlated noise, which accounts for environment fluctuations. Moreover, the interaction parameter between the two preys is a dichotomous stochastic process, which determines two dynamical regimes corresponding to different biological conditions. First, we study the noise effects on the three species dynamics in a single site. Afterwards, by a mean field approach we obtain, in Gaussian approximation, the moment equations for the species densities. Within this formal…

Complex dynamics of leukemic cells under intermittent therapy

The evolutionary dynamics of cancerous cell populations in a model of Chronic Myeloid Leukemia (CML) is investigated. A Monte Carlo approach is applied to model the cancer development and progression by simulating the stochastic evolution of initially healthy cells which can experience genetic mutations and modify their reproductive behavior, becoming leukemic clones. Front line therapy for the treatment of this kind of tumor is achieved by tyrosine kinase inhibitors, namely imatinib (Gleevec) or, more recently, dasatinib or nilotinib. Despite they represent the first example of a successful molecular targeted therapy, the development of resistance to these drugs is observed in a proportion…

Dynamics of three interacting species in single compartment and in spatially extended system by moment equations

Real ecosystems are influenced by random fluctuations of environmental parameters, such as temperature, food resources, migrations, genetic changes. This caused, during last decades, an increasing interest on the role played by the noise in population dynamics. In systems governed by nonlinear dynamics the presence of noise sources can give rise to counterintuitive phenomena like stochastic resonance, noise enhanced stability, resonant activation, noise delayed extinction. Therefore, the stability of biological systems in the presence of noise sources has become one of the most relevant topics both in experimental and theoretical investigations on complex systems. In this work we consider t…