Effects of phase lag on the information rate of a bistable Duffing oscillator

• Simulations and Fokker–Planck analysis for Duffing oscillator response are performed.
• The phase lag is found to be a nonlinear function of the noise level.
• The phase lag is shown to be important for calculating the information rate metric.

To utilize noise for systems, which are transmitting or receiving information, the information rate is a necessary metric to consider. The phase lag, which is the difference between the sender (applied forcing) and receiver (the oscillator) phases, has a significant effect on the information rate. However, this phase lag is a nonlinear function of the noise level. Here, the effects of phase lag on the information rate for a Duffing oscillator are examined and comparative discussions are made with phase lag from linear response theory. The phase lag is shown to be an important variable in calculating the information rate.