Driving driven lattice gases to identify their universality classes

Area of Science:

• Statistical physics
• Condensed matter physics
• Complex systems

Background:

• Driven lattice gas models are crucial for studying nonequilibrium phase transitions and critical phenomena.
• A persistent controversy exists regarding the universality classes of these models.
• Understanding universality classes is key to discerning symmetries in microscopic and mesoscopic theories of nonequilibrium critical phenomena.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate and resolve the controversy surrounding the universality classes of driven lattice gas models.
• To determine if different microscopic models exhibit distinct critical behaviors under nonequilibrium conditions.
• To assess the applicability of finite-time scaling in discriminating universality classes for nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Main Methods:

• Heating two generic driven lattice gas models with finite rates across their critical points.
• Applying the theory of finite-time scaling to analyze the critical behaviors.
• Unambiguously discriminating the universality classes of the studied models.

Main Results:

• The study successfully discriminated the universality classes of the two driven lattice gas models.
• The infinitely driven lattice gas model and the randomly driven lattice gas model were shown to belong to different universality classes.
• Finite-time scaling proved effective in analyzing nonequilibrium phase transitions.

Conclusions:

• Finite-time scaling is a powerful tool for resolving ambiguities in classifying universality classes of nonequilibrium phase transitions.
• The findings highlight that even subtle differences in microscopic dynamics can lead to distinct macroscopic critical behaviors.
• This work contributes to a deeper understanding of symmetry and universality in systems far from equilibrium.