Large Fluctuations in Stochastically Perturbed Nonlinear Systems: Applications in Computing

This is the transcript of a talk given at the 1992 Complex Systems Summer School. The theory of large fluctuations of stochastically perturbed continuous-time dynamical systems is reviewed, and the large fluctuations of two stochastic models arising in computer science are analysed. One is a stochastic model of a communications network, resembling an Ethernet, which experiences traffic fluctuations. The other is a simple model of two dynamic data structures in the same memory space. In both models `large fluctuations’ are unlikely, undesirable events. The mean time between occurrences of such events is estimated.