Universality of photon counting below a local bifurcation threshold

At a bifurcation point, small change of parameter causes qualitative in the system. Quantum fluctuations wash out this abrupt transition and enable emission quantized energy, which we term photons, below classical threshold. Close to resulting photon counting statistics is determined by instability. We propose generic method derive characteristic function close threshold that only depends on dynamics type bifurcation, based universality Martin-Siggia-Rose action. provide explicit expressions for cusp catastrophe without conservation laws. Moreover, an experimental setup using driven Josephson junctions exhibits both fold pitchfork behavior catastrophe.