Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process Research Articles

Time-dependent properties of run-and-tumble particles. II. Current fluctuations.

We investigate steady-state current fluctuations in two models of hardcore run-and-tumble particles (RTPs) on a periodic one-dimensional lattice of L sites, for arbitrary tumbling rate γ=τ_{p}^{-1} and density ρ; model I consists of standard hardcore RTPs, while model II is an analytically tractable variant of model I, called a long-ranged lattice gas (LLG). We show that, in the limit of L large, the fluctuation of cumulative current Q_{i}(T,L) across the ith bond in a time interval T≫1/D grows first subdiffusively and then diffusively (linearly) with T: 〈Q_{i}^{2}〉∼T^{α} with α=1/2 for 1/D≪T≪L^{2}/D and α=1 for T≫L^{2}/D, where D(ρ,γ) is the collective- or bulk-diffusion coefficient; at small times T≪1/D, exponent α depends on the details. Remarkably, regardless of the model details, the scaled bond-current fluctuations D〈Q_{i}^{2}(T,L)〉/2χL≡W(y) as a function of scaled variable y=DT/L^{2} collapse onto a universal scaling curve W(y), where χ(ρ,γ) is the collective particle mobility. In the limit of small density and tumbling rate, ρ,γ→0, with ψ=ρ/γ fixed, there exists a scaling law: The scaled mobility γ^{a}χ(ρ,γ)/χ^{(0)}≡H(ψ) as a function of ψ collapses onto a scaling curve H(ψ), where a=1 and 2 in models I and II, respectively, and χ^{(0)} is the mobility in the limiting case of a symmetric simple exclusion process; notably, the scaling function H(ψ) is model dependent. For model II (LLG), we calculate exactly, within a truncation scheme, both the scaling functions, W(y) and H(ψ). We also calculate spatial correlation functions for the current and compare our theory with simulation results of model I; for both models, the correlation functions decay exponentially, with correlation length ξ∼τ_{p}^{1/2} diverging with persistence time τ_{p}≫1. Overall, our theory is in excellent agreement with simulations and complements the prior findings [T. Chakraborty and P. Pradhan, Phys. Rev. E 109, 024124 (2024)1539-375510.1103/PhysRevE.109.024124].

Topological phases in the dynamics of the simple exclusion process.

We study the dynamical large deviations of the classical stochastic symmetric simple exclusion process (SSEP) by means of numerical matrix product states. We show that for half filling, long-time trajectories with a large enough imbalance between the number hops in even and odd bonds of the lattice belong to distinct symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases. Using tensor network techniques, we obtain the large deviation (LD) phase diagram in terms of counting fields conjugate to the dynamical activity and the total hop imbalance. We show the existence of high activity trivial and nontrivial SPT phases (classified according to string order parameters) separated by either a critical phase or a critical point. Using the leading eigenstate of the tilted generator, obtained from infinite-system density-matrix renormalization group simulations, we construct a near-optimal dynamics for sampling the LDs, and show that the SPT phases manifest at the level of rare stochastic trajectories. We also show how to extend these results to other filling fractions, and discuss generalizations to asymmetric SEPs.

The Effect of Strong Symmetric Coupling on Two-Lane Totally Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process with Junction

The Effect of Strong Symmetric Coupling on Two-Lane Totally Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process with Junction

Joint distribution of currents in the symmetric exclusion process

The symmetric simple exclusion process (SEP) is a paradigmatic model of diffusion in a single-file geometry, in which the particles cannot cross. In this model, the study of currents have attracted a lot of attention. In particular, the distribution of the integrated current through the origin, and more recently, of the integrated current through a moving reference point, have been obtained in the long time limit. This latter observable is particularly interesting, as it allows to obtain the distribution of the position of a tracer particle. However, up to now, these different observables have been considered independently. Here, we characterise the joint statistical properties of these currents, and their correlations with the density of particles. We show that the correlations satisfy closed integral equations, which generalise the ones obtained recently for a single observable. We also obtain boundary conditions verified by these correlations, which take a simple physical form for any single-file system. As a consequence of our results, we quantify the correlations between the displacement of a tracer, and the integrated current of particles through the origin.

Large deviations for out of equilibrium correlations in the symmetric simple exclusion process

Large deviations for out of equilibrium correlations in the symmetric simple exclusion process

Exact entanglement in the driven quantum symmetric simple exclusion process

Entanglement properties of driven quantum systems can potentially differ from the equilibrium situation due to long range coherences. We confirm this observation by studying a suitable toy model for mesoscopic transport: the open quantum symmetric simple exclusion process (QSSEP). We derive exact formulae for its mutual information between different subsystems in the steady state and show that it satisfies a volume law. Surprisingly, the QSSEP entanglement properties only depend on data related to its transport properties and we suspect that such a relation might hold for more general mesoscopic systems. Exploiting the free probability structure of QSSEP, we obtain these results by developing a new method to determine the eigenvalue spectrum of sub-blocks of random matrices from their so-called local free cumulants – a mathematical result on its own with potential applications in the theory of random matrices. As an illustration of this method, we show how to compute expectation values of observables in systems satisfying the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis (ETH) from the local free cumulants.

Moderate deviations for the current and tagged particle in symmetric simple exclusion processes

We prove moderate deviation principles for the tagged particle position and current in one dimensional symmetric simple exclusion processes. There is at most one particle per site. A particle jumps to one of its two neighbors at rate 1/2, and the jump is suppressed if there is already one at the target site. We distinguish one particular particle which is called the tagged particle. We first establish a variational formula for the moderate deviation rate functions of the tagged particle positions based on moderate deviation principles from hydrodynamic limits proved by Gao and Quastel (2003). Then we construct a minimizer of the variational formula and obtain explicit expressions for the moderate deviation rate functions.

A scaling limit of the parabolic Anderson model with exclusion interaction

AbstractWe consider the (discrete) parabolic Anderson model , , , where the ξ‐field is ‐valued and plays the role of a dynamic random environment, and Δ is the discrete Laplacian. We focus on the case in which ξ is given by a properly rescaled symmetric simple exclusion process under which it converges to an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process. Scaling the Laplacian diffusively and restricting ourselves to a torus, we show that in dimension upon considering a suitably renormalised version of the above equation, the sequence of solutions converges in law. As a by‐product of our main result we obtain precise asymptotics for the survival probability of a simple random walk that is killed at a scale dependent rate when meeting an exclusion particle. Our proof relies on the discrete theory of regularity structures of Erhard and Hairer and on novel sharp estimates of joint cumulants of arbitrary large order for the exclusion process. We think that the latter is of independent interest and may find applications elsewhere.

Current fluctuations in an interacting active lattice gas

We study the fluctuations of the integrated density current across the origin up to time T in a lattice model of active particles with hard-core interactions. This model is amenable to an exact description within a fluctuating hydrodynamics framework. We focus on quenched initial conditions for both the density and the magnetization fields and derive expressions for the cumulants of the density current, which can be matched with direct numerical simulations of the microscopic lattice model. For the case of uniform initial profiles, we show that the variance of the integrated current displays three regimes: an initial rise with a coefficient given by the symmetric simple exclusion process, a cross-over regime where the effects of activity increase the fluctuations, and a large-time behavior with a prefactor that depends on the initial conditions, the Péclet number, and the mean density of particles. Additionally, we study the limit of zero diffusion, where the fluctuations intriguingly exhibit a T 2 behavior at short times. However, at large times, the fluctuations still grow as , with a coefficient that can be calculated explicitly. For low densities, we show that this coefficient can be expressed in terms of the effective diffusion constant D eff for non-interacting active particles.

Tricritical Behavior in Dynamical Phase Transitions.

We identify a new scenario for dynamical phase transitions associated with time-integrated observables occurring in diffusive systems described by the macroscopic fluctuation theory. It is characterized by the pairwise meeting of first- and second-order bias-induced phase transition curves at two tricritical points. We formulate a simple, general criterion for its appearance and derive an exact Landau theory for the tricritical behavior. The scenario is demonstrated in three examples: the simple symmetric exclusion process biased by an activity-related structural observable; the Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn lattice gas model biased by its current; and in an active lattice gas biased by its entropy production.

Current fluctuations in a semi-infinite line

We present the application of a fluctuating hydrodynamic theory to study current fluctuations in diffusive systems on a semi-infinite line in contact with a reservoir with slow coupling. We show that the distribution of the time-integrated current across the boundary at large times follows a large deviation principle with a rate function that depends on the coupling strength with the reservoir. The system exhibits a long-term memory of its initial state, which was earlier reported on an infinite line and can be described using quenched and annealed averages of the initial state. We present an explicit expression for the rate function for independent particles, which we verify using an exact solution of the microscopic dynamics. For the symmetric simple exclusion process, we present expressions for the first three cumulants of both quenched and annealed averages.

Review article: Large fluctuations in non-equilibrium physics

Abstract. Non-equilibrium is dominant in geophysical and climate phenomena. However the study of non-equilibrium is much more difficult than equilibrium, and the relevance of probabilistic simplified models has been emphasized. Large deviation rates have been used recently in climate science. In this paper, after recalling progress during the last decades in understanding the role of large deviations in a class of non-equilibrium systems, we point out differences between equilibrium and non-equilibrium. For example, in non-equilibrium (a) large deviation rates may be extensive but not simply additive. (b) In non-equilibrium there are generically long-range space correlations, so large deviation rates are non-local. (c) Singularities in large deviation rates denote the existence of phase transitions often not possible in equilibrium. To exemplify, we shall refer to lattice gas models like the symmetric simple exclusion process and other models which are playing an important role in the understanding of non-equilibrium physics. The reasons why all this may be of interest in climate physics will be briefly indicated.

Hydrodynamical Behavior for the Symmetric Simple Partial Exclusion with Open Boundary

We analyze the generalized symmetric exclusion process, which allows at most $\alpha$ particles per site, and we put it in contact with stochastic reservoirs whose strength is regulated by a parameter $\theta\in\mathbb R$. We prove that the hydrodynamic behavior is given by the heat equation and depending on the value of $\theta$, the equation is supplemented with different boundary conditions. Setting $\alpha = 1$ we find the results known in [1] for the symmetric simple exclusion process.

Optimal Sampling of Dynamical Large Deviations in Two Dimensions via Tensor Networks.

We use projected entangled-pair states (PEPS) to calculate the large deviation statistics of the dynamical activity of the two-dimensional East model, and the two-dimensional symmetric simple exclusion process (SSEP) with open boundaries, in lattices of up to 40×40 sites. We show that at long times both models have phase transitions between active and inactive dynamical phases. For the 2D East model we find that this trajectory transition is of the first order, while for the SSEP we find indications of a second order transition. We then show how the PEPS can be used to implement a trajectory sampling scheme capable of directly accessing rare trajectories. We also discuss how the methods described here can be extended to study rare events at finite times.

Mixing times for the simple exclusion process with open boundaries

We study mixing times of the symmetric and asymmetric simple exclusion process on the segment where particles are allowed to enter and exit at the endpoints. We consider different regimes depending on the entering and exiting rates as well as on the rates in the bulk, and show that the process exhibits pre-cutoff and in some special cases even cutoff.

Coherent Fluctuations in Noisy Mesoscopic Systems, the Open Quantum SSEP, and Free Probability

Quantum coherences characterise the ability of particles to quantum mechanically interfere within some given distances. In the context of noisy many-body quantum systems these coherences can fluctuate. A simple toy model to study such fluctuations in an out-of-equilibrium setting is the open quantum symmetric simple exclusion process (Q-SSEP) which describes spinless fermions in one dimension hopping to neighbouring sites with random amplitudes coupled between two reservoirs. Here we show that the dynamics of fluctuations of coherences in Q-SSEP have a natural interpretation as free cumulants, a concept from free probability theory. Based on this insight we provide heuristic arguments why we expect free probability theory to be an appropriate framework to describe coherent fluctuations in generic mesoscopic systems where the noise emerges from a coarse-grained description. In the case of Q-SSEP we show how the link to free probability theory can be used to derive the time evolution of connected fluctuations of coherences as well as a simple steady state solution.

Large Deviations for the SSEP with slow boundary: the non-critical case

We prove a large deviations principle for the empirical measure of the one dimensional symmetric simple exclusion process in contact with reservoirs. The dynamics of the reservoirs is slowed down with respect to the dynamics of the system, that is, the rate at which the system exchanges particles with the boundary reservoirs is of order $n^{-\theta}$, where $n$ is number of sites in the system, $\theta$ is a non negative parameter, and the system is taken in the diffusive time scaling. Two regimes are studied here, the subcritical $\theta\in(0,1)$ whose hydrodynamic equation is the heat equation with Dirichlet boundary conditions and the supercritical $\theta\in(1,+\infty)$ whose hydrodynamic equation is the heat equation with Neumann boundary conditions. In the subcritical case $\theta\in(0,1)$, the rate function that we obtain matches the rate function corresponding to the case $\theta=0$ which was derived on previous works (see \cite{blm,flm}), but the challenges we faced here are much trickier. In the supercritical case $\theta\in(1,+\infty)$, the rate function is equal to infinity outside the set of trajectories which preserve the total mass, meaning that, despite the discrete system exchanges particles with the reservoirs, this phenomena has super-exponentially small probability in the diffusive scaling limit.

A simple symmetric exclusion process driven by an asymmetric tracer particle

We consider an exclusion process on a periodic one-dimensional lattice where all particles perform simple symmetric exclusion at rate $1$ except for a single tracer particle, which performs partially simple asymmetric exclusion with rate $p$ to the right and rate $q$ to the left. This model was first considered by Ferrari, Goldstein and Lebowitz (1985) as a test for the validity of the Einstein relation in microscopic systems. The main thrust of this work is an exact solution for the steady state of this exclusion process. We show that the stationary probabilities factorize and give an exact formula for the nonequilibrium partition function. We provide formulas for the current and two-point correlations. When the tracer particle performs totally asymmetric exclusion ($q=0$), the results are shown to simplify significantly and we find an unexpected connection with the combinatorics of set partitions. Finally, we study the system from the point of view of the tracer particle, the so-called environment process. In the environment process, we show that the density of particles decays with the scaled position in front of the tracer particle in the thermodynamic limit.

Macroscopic fluctuations of a driven tracer in the symmetric exclusion process

The dynamics of an asymmetric tracer in the symmetric simple exclusion process (SEP) is mapped, in the continuous scaling limit, to the local current through the origin in the zero-range process with a biased bond. This allows us to study the hydrodynamics of the SEP with an asymmetric tracer with a step initial condition, leading to the average displacement as a function of the bias and the densities on both sides. We then derive the cumulant generating function of the process in the high-density limit, by using the macroscopic fluctuation theory and obtain agreement with the microscopic results of Poncet et al (2021). For more general initial conditions, we show that the tracer variance in the high-density limit depends only on the generalized susceptibility in the initial condition.

Exact Solution of the Macroscopic Fluctuation Theory for the Symmetric Exclusion Process.

We present the first exact solution for the time-dependent equations of the macroscopic fluctuation theory (MFT) for the symmetric simple exclusion process by combining a generalization of the canonical Cole-Hopf transformation with the inverse scattering method. For the step initial condition with two densities, we obtain exact and compact formulas for the optimal density profile and the response field that produce a required fluctuation, both at initial and final times. The large deviation function of the current is derived and coincides with the formula obtained previously by microscopic calculations. This provides the first analytic confirmation of the validity of the MFT for an interacting model in the time-dependent regime.