Nonequilibrium Criticality at Shock Formation in Steady States

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that shock formation in steady states of certain nonequilibrium systems exhibits critical behavior characterized by diverging length scales, with a general framework for describing the transition without detailed model specifics.

Contribution

It introduces a universal description of nonequilibrium criticality at shock formation, applicable to a broad class of nonconserving asymmetric exclusion processes.

Findings

Identification of diverging length scales at shock transition

Quantitative phase boundary description without model specifics

Universal properties governing nonequilibrium critical phenomena

Abstract

The steady state shock formation in processes like nonconserving asymmetric simple exclusion processes in varied situations is shown to be a nonequilibrium critical phenomenon. The diverging length scales and the quantitative description of the transition including the phase boundary are obtained from a few general properties of the dynamics without relying on specific details.