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Non-Gaussian noise influences many complex out-of-equilibrium systems on awide range of scales such as quantum devices, active and living matter, andfinancial markets. Despite the ubiquitous nature of non-Gaussian noise, itseffect on activated transitions between metastable states has so far not beenunderstood in generality, notwithstanding prior work focusing on specific noisetypes and scaling regimes. Here, we present a unified framework for a generalclass of non-Gaussian noise, which we take as any finite-intensity noise withindependent and stationary increments. Our framework identifies optimal escapepaths as minima of a stochastic action, which enables us to derive analyticalresults for the dominant scaling of the escape rates in the weak-noise regimegeneralizing the conventional Arrhenius law. We show that non-Gaussian noisealways induces a more efficient escape, by reducing the effective potentialbarrier compared to the Gaussian case with the same noise intensity.Surprisingly, for a broad class of amplitude distributions even noise ofinfinitesimally small intensity can induce an exponentially larger escape rate.As the underlying reason we identify the appearance of discontinuous minimalaction paths, for which escape from the metastable state involves a finitejump. We confirm the existence of such paths by calculating the prefactor ofthe escape rate, as well as by numerical simulations. Our results highlightfundamental differences in the escape behaviour of systems subject to thermaland non-thermal fluctuations, which can be tuned to optimize switchingbehaviour in metastable systems.

Exponential increase of transition rates in metastable systems driven by non-Gaussian noise