DECAY OF METASTABLE STATES IN SPATIALLY EXTENDED REACTION-DIFFUSION SYSTEMS - ITS DEPENDENCE ON PARTIALLY REFLECTING BOUNDARY-CONDITIONS

We study a piecewise linear version of a one-component, two-dimensiona l reaction-diffusion bistable model with partially reflecting boundary conditions, with the aim of analyzing the decay of metastable states in spatially extended systems. We have studied the dependence of syste ms' Lyapunov functional in terms of a control parameter: the reflectiv ity at the boundary. Through the knowledge of this functional, we have computed the mean first-passage time for the decay of metastable nonh omogeneous stationary states, providing in this way dynamical informat ion on the changes of the relative stability between attractors.