Upper and lower bounds of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization in a bistable oscillator

This paper discusses concepts of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization in a bistable oscillator subject to both periodic signal and noise. We demonstrate that stochastic resonance is not directly correlated with the matching of the signal frequency and the switching rate. The phenomena of stochastic resonance and noise-induced synchronization are the limiting cases of noise-induced transitions, and the spectral response heavily depends on the input signal-to-noise ratio. The lower and upper bounds of noise intensity allowing synchronization are found as functions of the system's parameters. (c) 2006 American Institute of Physics.