In this note we study metastability phenomena for a class of long-range Ising models in one-dimension. We prove that, under suitable general conditions, the configuration - 1 is the only metastable state and we estimate the mean exit time. Moreover, we illustrate the theory with two examples (exponentially and polynomially decaying interaction) and we show that the critical droplet might be macroscopic or mesoscopic, according to the value of the external magnetic field.

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Cellular Automata are discrete-time dynamical systems on a spatially extended discrete space which provide paradigmatic examples of nonlinear phenomena. Their stochastic generalizations, i.e., Probabilistic Cellular Automata (PCA), are discrete time Markov chains on lattice with finite single-cell states whose distinguishing feature is the parallel character of the updating rule. We study the ground states of the Hamiltonian and the low-temperature phase diagram of the related Gibbs measure naturally associated with a class of reversible PCA, called the cross PCA. In such a model the updating rule of a cell depends indeed only on the status of the five cells forming a cross centered at the original cell itself. In particular, it depends on the value of the center spin (self-interaction). The goal of the paper is that of investigating the role played by the self-interaction parameter in connection with the ground states of the Hamiltonian and the low-temperature phase diagram of the Gibbs measure associated with this particular PCA.@en