Large compact clusters and fast dynamics in coupled nonequilibrium systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates a coupled nonequilibrium system where two particle species interact with a fluctuating landscape, leading to novel phase behavior, large particle clusters, and slow, algebraic coarsening dynamics across different dimensions.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive phase diagram for coupled particle-landscape systems, revealing new nonequilibrium phases with macroscopic clustering and coarsening dynamics not previously observed.

Findings

Particles form large, compact clusters.

Landscape exhibits coexisting ordered and disordered regions.

Coarsening and steady-state dynamics grow algebraically with system size.

Abstract

We demonstrate particle clustering on macroscopic scales in a coupled nonequilibrium system where two species of particles are advected by a fluctuating landscape and modify the landscape in the process. The phase diagram generated by varying the particle-landscape coupling, valid for all particle density and in both one and two dimensions, shows novel nonequilibrium phases. While particle species are completely phase separated, the landscape develops macroscopically ordered regions coexisting with a disordered region, resulting in coarsening and steady state dynamics on time scales which grow algebraically with size, not seen earlier in systems with pure domains.