Field theory of long time behaviour in driven diffusive systems

We present a renormalisation group study for the long time behaviour of a diffusive system with a single conserved density which is subjected to an external driving force. In the asymptotic long wavelength limit the system approaches an infrared stable fixed point where detailed balance is satisfied. We obtain the exact scaling form of the density correlation function. In one dimension, the corresponding universal amplitude agrees excellently with a recent Monte Carlo simulation.     

Field theory of critical behavior in a driven diffusive system

Journal of Statistical Physics -     

Field theory of critical behavior in a driven diffusive system

We use a field theoretic renormalization group method to study the critical properties of a diffusive system with a single conserved density subject to a constant uniform external field. A fixed point stable belowd _c=5 is found to govern the critical behavior. Scaling forms of density correlation functions are derived and critical exponents are obtained to all orders in =5–d. Spatial correlations are found to be very anisotropic with elongated correlations along the external field. Long wavelength transverse fluctuations are suppressed completely to yield mean field transverse exponents.     

Phase segregation in driven diffusive systems

Driven diffusive models describe an array of atoms in an external periodic potential, when the motion is damped due to energy exchange with the substrate. The systems of this class have wide application in modeling of charge and mass transport in solids. Recently, the driven diffusive models have been used in tribology, where the driving force emerges due to motion of one of two substrates, which are separated by a thin atomic layer. When a dc force is applied to the atoms, the system exhibits the locked-to-sliding transition. During the transition the system may split in domains of two kinds, the running domains where the atoms move with almost maximum velocity, and the immobile domains (“traffic jams”). We discuss a new model for a 1D chain, where the particles have a complex structure treated in a mean-field fashion: particle collisions are inelastic and also each particle is considered as having its own thermostat. This model exhibits a hysteresis and the “traffic jams” state even at high temperatures due to the clustering of atoms with the same velocity.     

Thermal response in driven diffusive systems

Evaluating the linear response of a driven system to a change in environment temperature(s) is essential for understanding thermal properties of nonequilibrium systems. The system is kept in weak contact with possibly different fast relaxing mechanical, chemical or thermal equilibrium reservoirs. Modifying one of the temperatures creates both entropy fluxes and changes in dynamical activity. That is not unlike mechanical response of nonequilibrium systems but the extra difficulty for perturbation theory via path-integration is that for a Langevin dynamics temperature also affects the noise amplitude and not only the drift part. Using a discrete-time mesh adapted to the numerical integration one avoids that ultraviolet problem and we arrive at a fluctuation expression for its thermal susceptibility. The algorithm appears stable under taking even finer resolution.     

Phase separation dynamics in driven diffusive systems

We study phase separation dynamics in a driven diffusive system. Our simulations are based on the Cahn-Hilliard equation with an additional flux term due to an external field. We study the dynamical scaling parallel and perpendicular to the field. A crossover is observed from isotropic domains at early times to extremely anisotropic domains at later times. We find that the inverse interfacial density (an isotropic measure of the domain size) increases ast , with =1/3, from early times independent of the field strength, even though we do not observe dynamical scaling during these times. Our results indicate that a growth exponent =1/3 may be more universal than previously expected. We analyze the dynamics in terms of surface driven instabilities and one-dimensional solitary waves.     

Non-universal critical behaviour in mean-field theory of inhomogeneous systems

We consider the layered magnetic systems with inhomogeneous inter-layer couplings and study their critical properties within the framework of mean-field theory. We consider two kinds of distribution of the couplings: (i) quasi-periodic, according to the Fibonacci sequence and (ii) smoothly inhomogeneous, in which the couplings deviate from the bulk couplings by an amount of Al⁻², where l measures the distance from a free surface. According to analytical and accurate numerical results the critical behaviour of both the problems is non-universal and the corresponding critical exponents are coupling dependent.     

Computer simulation of driven diffusive systems with exchanges

The field-driven Kawasaki model with a fractionp admixture of Glauber dynamics is studied by computer simulation:p=0 corresponds to the order-parameter-onserving driven diffusive system, whilep=1 is the equilibrium Ising model. Forp=0.1 our best estimates of critical exponents based on a system of size 4096×128 are0.22, ^RS0.45, andv v 1. These exponents differ from both the values predicted by a field-theoretic method forp=0 and those of the equilibrium Ising model. Anisotropic finite-size scaling analyses are carried out, both for subsystems of the large system and for fully periodic systems. The results of the latter, however, are inconsistent, probably due to the complexity of the size effects. This leaves open the possibility that we are in a crossover regime fromp=0 top0 and that our critical exponents are effective ones. Forp=0 our results are consistent with the predictionsv >v .     

Cellular automaton models of driven diffusive Frenkel-Kontorova-type systems

Three cellular automaton models of increasing complexity are introduced to model driven diffusive systems related to the generalized Frenkel-Kontorova (FK) models recently proposed by Braun et al. [Phys. Rev. E 58, 1311 (1998)]. The models are defined in terms of parallel updating rules. Simulation results are presented for these models. The features are qualitatively similar to those models defined previously in terms of sequentially updating rules. Essential features of the FK model such as phase transitions, jamming due to atoms in the immobile state, and hysteresis in the relationship between the fraction of atoms in the running state and the bias field are captured. Formulating in terms of parallel updating rules has the advantage that the models can be treated analytically by following the time evolution of the occupation on every site of the lattice. Results of this analytical approach are given for the two simpler models. The steady state properties are found by studying the stable fixed points of a closed set of dynamical equations obtained within the approximation of retaining spatial correlations only up to two nearest-neighboring sites. Results are found to be in good agreement with numerical data.     

Mode-coupling theory for purely diffusive systems

A mode-coupling formalism is developed for multicomponent systems of particles performing diffusive motion in a uniform host medium. The mode-coupling equations are derived from a set of nonlinear fluctuating diffusion equations by expanding the concentration-dependent diffusion constants about their equilibrium values. From the mode-coupling equations the dominant long time behavior of current-current and super-Burnett correlation functions is derived. As specific applications I consider the long time behaviors of these correlation functions for collective and tracer diffusion in a one-component lattice gas with particle-conserving stochastic dynamics. The results agree with those from exactly solvable models and computer simulations.     

Modelling one-dimensional driven diffusive systems by the Zero-Range Process

In order to characterize networks in the scale-free network class we study the frequency of cycles of length h that indicate the ordering of network structure and the multiplicity of paths connecting two nodes. In particular we focus on the scaling of the number of cycles with the system size in off-equilibrium scale-free networks. We observe that each off-equilibrium network model is characterized by a particular scaling in general not equal to the scaling found in equilibrium scale-free networks. We claim that this anomalous scaling can occur in real systems and we report the case of the Internet at the Autonomous System Level.Received: 15 January 2004, Published online: 14 May 2004PACS: 89.75.-k Complex systems - 89.75.Hc Networks and genealogical trees     

A maximum entropy mean field method for driven diffusive systems

We introduce a method of generating systematic mean field (MF) approximations for the nonequilibrium steady state of ferromagnetic Ising driven diffusive systems (DDS), based on the maximum entropy principle due to Jaynes. In the phase coexistence region, MF approximations to the master equation do not provide a closed system of equations in the MF variables. This can be traced to the conservation of the order parameter by the stochastic dynamics. Our maximum entropy mean field (MEMF) approximation method is applicable to high temperatures as well to the low-temperature phase coexistence region. It is based on a derivation of a generalized variational free energy from the maximum entropy principle, with the MF evolution equations playing the role of constraints. In the phase coexistence region this free energy is nonconvex and is interpreted by means of a Maxwell construction. We use a pair-level variant of the MEMF approximation to calculate quantities of interest for the ferro-magnetic Ising DDS on a square lattice. Results of calculations with several different choices of transition rates satisfying local detailed balance are discussed and compared with those obtained by other methods.     

Current-conserving nonlinear response theory in driven systems

Employing the closed-time path 2PI effective action (CTP 2PI EA) approach, we study the response of an open interacting electronic system to time-dependent external electromagnetic fields. We show that the 2PI EA provides a systematic way of calculating the propagator and response functions of the system. Due to the invariance of the 2PI EA under external gauge transformations, the response functions calculated from it are such that the Ward–Takahashi hierarchy, which ensures current conservation beyond the expectation value level, is satisfied. These findings may be useful in the study of interacting electronic pumping devices, and serve to clarify the connection between current conservation (beyond the mean value level) and real-time nonlinear response theory.     

Fluctuations in the motions of mass and of patterns in one-dimensional driven diffusive systems

The stochastic spreading of mass fluctuations in systems described by a fluctuating Burgers equation increases ast ^2/3 with time. As a consequence the stochastic motion of a mass front, a point through which no excess mass current is flowing, is shown to increase ast ^1/3. The same is true for the stochastic displacement of mass points and shock fronts with respect to their average drift, provided the initial configuration is fixed. An additional average over the stationary distribution of the initial configuration yields stochastic displacements, increasing with time ast ^1/2.