Fertile metastability

Remarks about metastability

Metastability of life

The physical idea of the natural origin of diseases and deaths has been presented. The fundamental microscopical reason is the destruction of any metastable state by thermal activation of a nucleus of a nonreversable change. On the basis of this idea the quantitative theory of age dependence of death probability has been constructed. The obtained simple Death Laws are very accurately fulfilled ...

Metastability of Potential Games

One of the main criticisms to game theory concerns the assumption of full rationality. Logit dynamics is a decentralized algorithm in which a level of irrationality (a.k.a. “noise”) is introduced in players’ behavior. In this context, the solution concept of interest becomes the logit equilibrium, as opposed to Nash equilibria. Logit equilibria are distributions over strategy profiles that poss...

Quantum Statistical Metastability Revisited

We calculate the decay rate for a state prepared in a thermal density matrix centered on a metastable ground state. We find a rate that is intrinsically time dependent, as opposed to the constant rates of previous works. The rate vanishes at early times, rises to a maximum and eventually falls-off to zero as a consequence of unitary time evolution. Finally, we discuss extensions of this calcula...

Mini-course on Metastability

Metastability is a ubiquitous phenomenon in nature, with examples coming from physics, chemistry, biology, climatology and economics. The objects of interest are systems that make transitions between “metastable states”, i.e., quasi-equilibria that appear to be equilibria, but are not, and the stable state. Metastable behavior is characterized by a long period of apparent equilibrium of a pure ...