Disordering effects of color in nonequilibrium phase transitions induced by multiplicative noise

Abstract

The model introduced by Van den Broeck, Parrondo and Toral [Phys. Rev. Lett.73, 3395 (1994)] -- leading to a second-order-like noise-induced nonequilibrium phase transition which shows reentrance as a function of the (multiplicative) noise intensity $\sigma$-- is investigated beyond the white-noise assumption. Through a Markovian approximation and within a mean-field treatment it is found that -- in striking contrast with the usual behavior for equilibrium phase transitions -- for noise self-correlation time $\tau>0$, the stable phase for (diffusive) spatial coupling $D\to\infty$ is always the disordered one. Another surprising result is that a large noise "memory" also tends to destroy order. These results are supported by numerical simulations.