  We show that noise enhances the trapping of trajectories in scattering
systems. In fully chaotic systems, the decay rate can decrease with increasing
noise due to a generic mismatch between the noiseless escape rate and the value
predicted by the Liouville measure of the exit set. In Hamiltonian systems with
mixed phase space we show that noise leads to a slower algebraic decay due to
trajectories performing a random walk inside Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser islands.
We argue that these noise-enhanced trapping mechanisms exist in most scattering
systems and are likely to be dominant for small noise intensities, which is
confirmed through a detailed investigation in the Henon map. Our results can be
tested in fluid experiments, affect the fractal Weyl's law of quantum systems,
and modify the estimations of chemical reaction rates based on phase-space
transition state theory.
