Effects of potential functions on stochastic resonance

In this paper, the effects of a bistable potential function U(x)=-ax^2/2+b|x|^2\gamma /(2\gamma) on stochastic resonance (SR) is discussed. We investigate the effects of index \gamma on the performance of the SR system with fixed parameters a and b, and with fixed potential barriers, respectively. To measure the performance of the SR system in the presence of an aperiodic input, the bit error rate is employed, as is commonly used in binary communications. The numerical simulations strongly support the theoretical results. The goal of this investigation is to explore the effects of the shape of potential functions on SR and give a guidance of nonlinear systems in the application of information processing.