Driven Diffusive Systems with Disorder

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent research on the asymmetric exclusion process with various types of disorder, revealing that disorder induces phase separation and affects the dynamical universality class depending on the kinematic wave velocity.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of disordered driven diffusive systems by analyzing static and dynamic effects of different disorder types on phase behavior.

Findings

Disorder causes phase separation in the system.

The dynamical universality class remains unchanged if the kinematic wave velocity is nonzero.

Different disorder types influence the system's properties in specific ways.

Abstract

We discuss recent work on the static and dynamical properties of the asymmetric exclusion process, generalized to include the effect of disorder. We study in turn: random disorder in the properties of particles; disorder in the spatial distribution of transition rates, both with a single easy direction and with random reversals of the easy direction; dynamical disorder, where particles move in a disordered landscape which itself evolves in time. In every case, the system exhibits phase separation; in some cases, it is of an unusual sort. The time-dependent properties of density fluctuations are in accord with the kinematic wave criterion that the dynamical universality class is unaffected by disorder if the kinematic wave velocity is nonzero.