Role of fluctuations in nonlinear dynamics of a driven polariton system in semiconductor microcavities

The escape time from the lower energy state of the bistable nonlinear driven microcavity oscillator has been obtained analytically by means of the quasi-classical kinetic equation in the basis of quasi-energy states. The dependence of the escape time on the intensity of the external field is in rather good agreement with the results of numerical experiments. Moreover, the numerical dependencies of the escape time on the damping parameter reveal a smooth crossover from exponential to diffusive-like behavior. The text was submitted by the authors in English.