Nonequilibrium relaxation and critical aging for driven Ising lattice gases

Transverse temperature interfaces in the Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn driven lattice gas

We explore the intriguing spatial patterns that emerge in a two-dimensional spatially inhomogeneous Katz-Lebowitz-Spohn (KLS) driven lattice gas with attractive nearest-neighbor interactions. The domain is split into two regions with hopping rates governed by different temperatures T>T_{c} and T_{c}, respectively, where T_{c} indicates the critical temperature for phase ordering, and with the temperature boundaries oriented perpendicular to the drive. In the hotter region, the system behaves like the (totally) asymmetric exclusion processes (TASEP), and experiences particle blockage in front of the interface to the critical region. To explain this particle density accumulation near the interface, we have measured the steady-state current in the KLS model at T>T_{c} and found it to decay as 1/T. In analogy with TASEP systems containing "slow" bonds, we argue that transport in the high-temperature subsystem is impeded by the lower current in the cooler region, which tends to set the global stationary particle current value. This blockage is induced by the extended particle clusters, growing logarithmically with system size, in the critical region. We observe the density profiles in both high- and low-temperature subsystems to be similar to the well-characterized coexistence and maximal-current phases in (T)ASEP models with open boundary conditions, which are respectively governed by hyperbolic and trigonometric tangent functions. Yet if the lower temperature is set to T_{c}, we detect marked fluctuation corrections to the mean-field density profiles, e.g., the corresponding critical KLS power-law density decay near the interfaces into the cooler region.

Driving driven lattice gases to identify their universality classes

The critical behaviors of driven lattice gas models have been studied for decades as a paradigm to explore nonequilibrium phase transitions and critical phenomena. However, there exists a long-standing controversy in their universality classes. This is of paramount importance as it implies the question of whether or not a microscopic model and its mesoscopic field theory may possess different symmetries in nonequilibrium critical phenomena in contrast to their equilibrium counterparts. Here, we heat with finite rates two generic models of driven lattice gases across their respective nonequilibrium critical points into further nonequilibrium situations. Employing the theory of finite-time scaling, we are able to unambiguously discriminate the universality classes between the two models. In particular, the infinitely driven lattice gas and the randomly driven lattice gas models belong to different universality classes. These results show that finite-time scaling is effective even in nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Universal Gaussian behavior of driven lattice gases at short times

The dynamic and static critical behaviors of driven and equilibrium lattice gas models are studied in two spatial dimensions. We show that in the short-time regime immediately following a critical quench, the dynamics of the transverse anisotropic order parameter, its autocorrelation, and Binder cumulant are consistent with the prediction of a Gaussian, i.e., noninteracting, effective theory, both for the nonequilibrium lattice gases and, to some extent, their equilibrium counterpart. Such a superuniversal behavior is observed only at short times after a critical quench, while the various models display their distinct behaviors in the stationary states, described by the corresponding, known universality classes.

Short-Time Behavior and Criticality of Driven Lattice Gases

The nonequilibrium short-time critical behaviors of driven and undriven lattice gases are investigated via Monte Carlo simulations in two spatial dimensions starting from a fully disordered initial configuration. In particular, we study the time evolution of suitably defined order parameters, which account for the strong anisotropy introduced by the homogeneous drive. We demonstrate that, at short times, the dynamics of all these models is unexpectedly described by an effective continuum theory in which transverse fluctuations, i.e., fluctuations averaged along the drive, are Gaussian, irrespective of this being actually the case in the stationary state. Strong numerical evidence is provided, in remarkable agreement with that theory, both for the driven and undriven lattice gases, which therefore turn out to display the same short-time dynamics.

Microscopic origin and macroscopic implications of lane formation in mixtures of oppositely driven particles

Colloidal particles of two types, driven in opposite directions, can segregate into lanes [Vissers et al., Soft Matter 7, 2352 (2011)1744-683X10.1039/c0sm01343a]. This phenomenon can be reproduced by two-dimensional Brownian dynamics simulations of model particles [Dzubiella et al., Phys. Rev. E 65, 021402 (2002)1063-651X10.1103/PhysRevE.65.021402]. Here we use computer simulation to assess the generality of lane formation with respect to variation of particle type and dynamical protocol. We find that laning results from rectification of diffusion on the scale of a particle diameter: oppositely driven particles must, in the time taken to encounter each other in the direction of the drive, diffuse in the perpendicular direction by about one particle diameter. This geometric constraint implies that the diffusion constant of a particle, in the presence of those of the opposite type, grows approximately linearly with the Péclet number, a prediction confirmed by our numerics over a range of model parameters. Such environment-dependent diffusion is statistically similar to an effective interparticle attraction; consistent with this observation, we find that oppositely driven nonattractive colloids display features characteristic of the simplest model system possessing both interparticle attractions and persistent motion, the driven Ising lattice gas [Katz, Leibowitz, and Spohn, J. Stat. Phys. 34, 497 (1984)JSTPBS0022-471510.1007/BF01018556]. These features include long-ranged correlations in the disordered regime, a critical regime characterized by a change in slope of the particle current with the Péclet number, and fluctuations that grow with system size. By analogy, we suggest that lane formation in the driven colloid system is a phase transition in the macroscopic limit, but that macroscopic phase separation would not occur in finite time upon starting from disordered initial conditions.