Effect of inertial mass on a linear system driven by dichotomous noise and a periodic signal

A linear system driven by dichotomous noise and a periodic signal is investigated in the underdamped case. The exact expressions of output signal amplitude and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the system are derived. By means of numerical calculation, the results indicate that (i) at some fixed noise intensities, the output signal amplitude with inertial mass exhibits the structure of a single peak and single valley, or even two peaks if the dichotomous noise is asymmetric; (ii) in the case of asymmetric dichotomous noise, the inertial mass can cause non-monotonic behaviour of the output signal amplitude with respect to noise intensity; (iii) the curve of SNR versus inertial mass displays a maximum in the case of asymmetric dichotomous noise, i.e., a resonance-like phenomenon, while it decreases monotonically in the case of symmetric dichotomous noise; (iv) if the noise is symmetric, the inertial mass can induce stochastic resonance in the system.