Effective phase description of noise-perturbed and noise-induced oscillations (1006.3173v1)

Abstract: An effective description of a general class of stochastic phase oscillators is presented. For this, the effective phase velocity is defined either by invariant probability density or via first passage times. While the first approach exhibits correct frequency and distribution density, the second one yields proper phase resetting curves. Their discrepancy is most pronounced for noise-induced oscillations and is related to non-monotonicity of the phase fluctuations.