About the Shift between the Advanced and Delayed Thermal Explosion Time

The shift between the advanced and delayed explosion times is analytically studied in terms of the escape time to leave the point of marginal stability. A perturbation theory, in the small noise parameter, is introduced to analyze the escape of the stochastic path. Special emphasis on thermal explosion is given in order to exemplify a system undergoing hysteresis in a first-order non-equilibrium phase transiti