Casimir-like forces in cooperative exclusion processes

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that cooperative exclusion processes with density-dependent diffusion can produce tunable Casimir-like forces, which are fluctuation-induced and depend on boundary reservoir densities, revealing new interactions in particle systems.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of fluctuation-induced Casimir-like forces in cooperative exclusion processes with kinetic constraints, analyzed through a mean-field nonlinear diffusion model.

Findings

Forces can be attractive or repulsive depending on reservoir density

The diffusion coefficient exhibits a minimum at certain densities

The magnitude and sign of forces are estimated via mean-field analysis

Abstract

I show that cooperative exclusion processes with selective kinetic constraints exhibit fluctuation-induced forces that can be attractive or repulsive, depending on the density of boundary reservoirs, when their density-dependent diffusion coefficient exhibits a minimum. A mean-field analysis based on a nonlinear diffusion equation provides an estimation of the magnitude and sign of such a tunable Casimir-like force and suggests its occurrence in interacting particle systems with a diffusivity anomaly.