Stochastic resonant memory storage device.

We show that an extended system operating in the regime of stochastic resonance can act as a short-term memory device. The system under study is a ring of overdamped bistable oscillators coupled directionally, being each also subject to an external source of Gaussian white noise (the noise sources are independent). A single oscillator is driven by an external periodic force, assumed to act only over the time that the signal takes to traverse the whole ring. A traveling wave is then found to be transmitted several times along the ring with a small damping, provided that the driven oscillator operates in a regime close to stochastic resonance. If noise is suppressed from any oscillator of the chain, the traveling wave is immediately damped. The ring is thus found to act as a short-term memory device in which the stored information (one bit, corresponding to the presence or absence of the external driving) is sustained by noise during a characteristic time T(mem).

[1]  F Moss,et al.  Light enhances hydrodynamic signaling in the multimodal caudal photoreceptor interneurons of the crayfish. , 1996, Journal of neurophysiology.

[2]  A. Longtin.  Stochastic resonance in neuron models , 1993 .

[3]  Carson C. Chow,et al.  Stochastic resonance without tuning , 1995, Nature.

[4]  R. Perazzo,et al.  Fault tolerance in noise-enhanced propagation. , 2000, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[5]  N. Kampen,et al.  Stochastic processes in physics and chemistry , 1981 .

[6]  Sergey M. Bezrukov,et al.  Noise-induced enhancement of signal transduction across voltage-dependent ion channels , 1995, Nature.

[7]  Wiesenfeld,et al.  Theory of stochastic resonance. , 1989, Physical review. A, General physics.

[8]  Jung,et al.  Spatiotemporal stochastic resonance in excitable media. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[9]  Frank Moss,et al.  Chemical dynamics Noisy waves , 1998, Nature.

[10]  E. Hunt,et al.  Noise Sustained Propagation of a Signal in Coupled Bistable Electronic Elements , 1998 .

[11]  L. Gammaitoni,et al.  Signal transmission in one-way coupled bistable systems: Noise effect , 1998 .

[12]  Bulsara,et al.  Array enhanced stochastic resonance and spatiotemporal synchronization. , 1995, Physical review letters.

[13]  Adi R. Bulsara,et al.  Bistability and the dynamics of periodically forced sensory neurons , 1994, Biological Cybernetics.

[14]  Frank Moss,et al.  Noise enhancement of information transfer in crayfish mechanoreceptors by stochastic resonance , 1993, Nature.

[15]  Bulsara,et al.  Scaling laws for spatiotemporal synchronization and array enhanced stochastic resonance. , 1996, Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics.

[16]  K. Showalter,et al.  Noise-supported travelling waves in sub-excitable media , 1998, Nature.

[17]  W. Ditto,et al.  Noise Enhanced Propagation , 1998 .

[18]  Bulsara,et al.  Time-interval sequences in bistable systems and the noise-induced transmission of information by sensory neurons. , 1991, Physical review letters.