Zeitschrift für Physik B Condensed Matter

The coordinate of a white noise driven harmonic oscillator is used as a stochastic source term in bistable dynamics. This new kind of Gaussian colored noise gives rise to resonance phenomena due to a peak in the spectrum. We investigate its effect on linear and bistable systems. We derive a Markovian approximation for driven bistable oscillators and overdamped systems. In the resonance region computer simulations were carried out using an extension of Fox' algorithm procedure for colored noise. We find an increase of the transition rates in bistable systems as compared with the case of bistable systems driven by white and exponentially correlated noise.