Metastatistics

Metastatistics is a field that studies the statistics of metastable states in complex systems. It concerns the distribution of lifetimes, transition rates, and occupancy probabilities of metastable configurations, and is used across physics, chemistry, materials science, and related disciplines.

In physical systems, metastability occurs when a system resides in a local energy minimum separated by energy barriers from more stable states. Metastatistical analysis seeks to quantify escape processes and pathways, often employing Markov models, master equations, rate theories, and stochastic simulations.

Common methods include survival analysis for lifetimes, hazard functions, exponential or non-exponential lifetime distributions; estimation of transition rates from experimental or simulation data; and path-based approaches like transition path theory.

Applications include crystallization and nucleation, spin and glassy systems, protein folding landscapes, and reliability analysis of materials under stress.

In some literatures, metastatistics can also denote meta-statistics or meta-analysis of statistics across studies; this usage is less standardized and can be ambiguous, so field-specific definitions are important.