Information Geometry of Spatially Periodic Stochastic Systems

Abstract

We explore the effect of different spatially periodic, deterministic forces on the information geometry of stochastic processes. The three forces considered are f 0 = sin ( π x ) / π and f ± = sin ( π x ) / π ± sin ( 2 π x ) / 2 π , with f - chosen to be particularly flat (locally cubic) at the equilibrium point x = 0 , and f + particularly flat at the unstable fixed point x = 1 . We numerically solve the Fokker–Planck equation with an initial condition consisting of a periodically repeated Gaussian peak centred at x = μ , with μ in the range [ 0 , 1 ] . The strength D of the stochastic noise is in the range 10 - 4 – 10 - 6 . We study the details of how these initial conditions evolve toward the final equilibrium solutions and elucidate the important consequences of the interplay between an initial PDF and a force. For initial positions close to the equilibrium point x = 0 , the peaks largely maintain their shape while moving. In contrast, for initial positions sufficiently close to the unstable point x = 1 , there is a tendency for the peak to slump in place and broaden considerably before reconstituting itself at the equilibrium point. A consequence of this is that the information length L ∞ , the total number of statistically distinguishable states that the system evolves through, is smaller for initial positions closer to the unstable point than for more intermediate values. We find that L ∞ as a function of initial position μ is qualitatively similar to the force, including the differences between f 0 = sin ( π x ) / π and f ± = sin ( π x ) / π ± sin ( 2 π x ) / 2 π , illustrating the value of information length as a useful diagnostic of the underlying force in the system.