Effect of multiplicative noise on parametric instabilities

We report a study on the effect of external multiplicative noise on parametric instabilities using two different experimental systems: an electronic RLC circuit, parametrically pumped with a voltage-variable capacitor, and surface waves generated by vertically vibrating a layer of fluid (the Faraday instability). Both systems are forced by the superposition of a sinusoidal and a noisy component. We study the statistical properties of the response of both systems to noisy parametric forcing and compare them with theoretical predictions. When the detuning from parametric resonance is such that the bifurcation in the absence of noise is supercritical, both systems behave in the same way under the influence of noise. We find that the effect of noise is twofold: on one hand, it triggers the instability before its deterministic onset under the form of oscillatory bursts; on the other hand, it inhibits the nonlinearly saturated oscillatory response above the deterministic onset. When the detuning is such that the bifurcation is subcritical, we find that the two systems behave differently. In the case of the electronic oscillator, noise mostly triggers random transitions between the two states of the bistable region that exists in the absence of noise, whereas in the surface wave experiment new states are created by noise and the bistable region is strongly enlarged.