# Driving Driven Lattice Gases to Identify Their Universality Classes

## TL;DR

This study uses finite-time scaling to clarify the universality classes of driven lattice gas models, demonstrating that different models belong to distinct classes and establishing the method's effectiveness in nonequilibrium phase transitions.

## Contribution

It applies finite-time scaling to distinguish universality classes in driven lattice gases, resolving long-standing controversy and showing different models belong to separate universality classes.

## Key findings

- Infinitely driven and randomly driven lattice gases belong to different universality classes.
- Finite-time scaling effectively discriminates universality classes in nonequilibrium phase transitions.
- The study resolves a long-standing controversy in nonequilibrium critical phenomena.

## Abstract

The critical behavior of driven lattice gas models has been studied for decades as a paradigm to explore nonequilibrium phase transitions and critical phenomena. However, there exists a long-standing controversy in the universality classes to which they belong. 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 conditions. 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.