Traffic jams induced by rare switching events in two-lane transport

TL;DR

This paper models two-lane traffic with particles having internal states, revealing how rare switching events induce traffic jams and phase transitions, with analytical insights into density profiles and phase diagrams.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled internal state model for driven exclusion processes, uncovering polarization phenomena and complex phase behavior in traffic flow.

Findings

Localization of domain walls in density profiles

Emergence of continuous and discontinuous phase transitions

Analytical phase diagrams derived from mean-field and continuum approaches

Abstract

We investigate a model for driven exclusion processes where internal states are assigned to the particles. The latter account for diverse situations, ranging from spin states in spintronics to parallel lanes in intracellular or vehicular traffic. Introducing a coupling between the internal states by allowing particles to switch from one to another induces an intriguing polarization phenomenon. In a mesoscopic scaling, a rich stationary regime for the density profiles is discovered, with localized domain walls in the density profile of one of the internal states being feasible. We derive the shape of the density profiles as well as resulting phase diagrams analytically by a mean-field approximation and a continuum limit. Continuous as well as discontinuous lines of phase transition emerge, their intersections induce multicritical behavior.