Thermally activated particle motion in biased correlated Gaussian disorder potentials.

Thermally activated particle motion in disorder potentials is controlled by the large-ΔV tail of the distribution of height ΔV of the potential barriers created by the disorder. We employ the optimal fluctuation method to evaluate this tail for correlated quenched Gaussian potentials in one dimension in the presence of a small bias of the potential. We focus on the mean escape time (MET) of overdamped particles averaged over the disorder.