The impact of white noise on a supercritical bifurcation in the Swift-Hohenberg equation

Abstract: We consider the impact of additive Gaussian white noise on a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation in an unbounded domain. As an example we focus on the stochastic Swift-Hohenberg equation with polynomial nonlinearity. Here we identify the order where small noise first impacts the bifurcation. Using an approximation via modulation equations, we provide a tool to analyse how the noise influences the dynamics close to a change of stability.