Laboratoire de Physique Théorique
Toulouse - UMR 5152

The lifetime of metastable states is a topical issue in out-of-equilibrium statistical mechanics. The intricate interplay between non integrable Hamiltonian dynamics and equilibrium statistical ensemble predictions has given rise to numerous studies aiming to characterize the length of such states, mainly depending on the number of degrees of freedom. We propose here a novel stochastic approach which successfully captures the behaviour of non-trivial quantities, leading to proper estimations of metastable states’ lifetimes, hence improving the already-known heuristic expectations.