Escape rates in the region between the Kramers limits

Abstract

Numerical simulation data for the rate of thermally activated escape from a metastable well are presented for a range of parameters extending from low-damping to strong-damping Kramers limits. To this purpose the Langevin equation is transformed into a set of difference equations optimized for numerical calculations. With this algorithm the range of barrier heights explorable is considerably larger than in previous work. For sufficiently high barriers the data are found to be in good agreement with a recent analytical solution [H. Grabert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 61, 1683 (1988)] of the Kramers turnover problem.