Metastable decay rates and analytic continuation

✍ Scribed by B. Gaveau; L. S. Schulman

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 378 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0377-9017
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00399968

✦ Synopsis

We present a new bound for the decay rate of a metastable state (in the context of the Fokker-Planck equation) and indicate circumstances under which this bound provides a good estimate. The estimate is used to study the conjectured relation F = k lm F between decay rate and free energy analytic continuation. A counterexample as well as an explanation for the relation's usual validity are provided.