A nonequilibrium-to-equilibrium mapping and its application to the perturbed sine-Gordon equation (Q1089514)

Given a partial differential equation (pde) in one time and D spatial dimensions which is driven by noise \(\zeta\) (\(\vec x;t)\) with a known distribution P[\(\zeta\) ], one may find the distribution P[\(\psi\) ] of the solution \(\psi\) (\(\vec x;t)\). Furthermore, the distribution may be written as \(P[\psi]\sim e^{-\beta H[\psi]}\) with H[\(\psi\) ] an effective Hamiltonian in \(D+1\) dimensions (time having become an extra spatial dimension). Then, the most probable solution of the pde is that function which minimizes H[\(\psi\) ]. Here, we describe this method and illustrate it for the damped, driven sine-Gordon equation in one spatial dimension \((D=1)\).