Transient properties of different physical systems with metastable states perturbed by external white noise have been investigated. Two noise-induced phenomena, namely the noise enhanced stability and the resonant activation, are theoretically predic
ted in a piece-wise linear fluctuating potential with a metastable state. The enhancement of the lifetime of metastable states due to the noise, and the suppression of noise through resonant activation phenomenon will be reviewed in models of interdisciplinary physics: (i) dynamics of an overdamped Josephson junction; (ii) transient regime of the noisy FitzHugh-Nagumo model; (iii) population dynamics.
