We study mixing times of the symmetric and asymmetric simple exclusion process on the segment where particles are allowed to enter and exit at the endpoints. We consider different regimes depending on the entering and exiting rates as well as on the rates in the bulk, and show that the process exhibits pre-cutoff and in some cases cutoff. Our main contribution is to study mixing times for the asymmetric simple exclusion process with open boundaries. We show that the order of the mixing time can be linear or exponential in the size of the segment depending on the choice of the boundary parameters, proving a strikingly different (and richer) behavior for the simple exclusion process with open boundaries than for the process on the closed segment. Our arguments combine coupling, second class particle and censoring techniques with current estimates. A novel idea is the use of multi-species particle arguments, where the particles only obey a partial ordering.
We show that the joint probability generating function of the stationary measure of a finite state asymmetric exclusion process with open boundaries can be expressed in terms of joint moments of Markov processes called quadratic harnesses. We use our representation to prove the large deviations principle for the total number of particles in the system. We use the generator of the Markov process to show how explicit formulas for the average occupancy of a site arise for special choices of parameters. We also give similar representations for limits of stationary measures as the number of sites t…
In this paper, we investigate the mixing time of the adjacent transposition shuffle for a deck of $N$ cards. We prove that around time $N^2\log N/(2π^2)$, the total variation distance to equilibrium of the deck distribution drops abruptly from $1$ to $0$, and that the separation distance has a similar behavior but with a transition occurring at time $(N^2\log N)/π^2$. This solves a conjecture formulated by David Wilson. We present also similar results for the exclusion process on a segment of length $N$ with $k$ particles.
In this paper, we investigate the mixing time of the simple exclusion process on the circle with $N$ sites, with a number of particle $k(N)$ tending to infinity, both from the worst initial condition and from a typical initial condition. We show that the worst-case mixing time is asymptotically equivalent to $(8π^2)^{-1}N^2\log k$, while the cutoff window, is identified to be $N^2$. Starting from a typical condition, we show that there is no cutoff and that the mixing time is of order $N^2$.
We study the hydrodynamic limit of SSEP with slow boundaries on hypercubes in dimension at least two. The hydrodynamic limit equation is shown to be a heat equation with three different types of boundary conditions according to the slowness of the boundary dynamics.The proof is based on Yau's relative entropy method.
We study the one-dimensional asymmetric simple exclusion process on the lattice $\{1, \dots,N\}$ with creation/annihilation at the boundaries. The boundary rates are time dependent and change on a slow time scale $N^{-a}$ with $a>0$. We prove that at the time scale $N^{1+a}$ the system evolves quasi-statically with a macroscopic density profile given by the entropy solution of the stationary Burgers equation with boundary densities changing in time, determined by the corresponding microscopic boundary rates. We consider two different types of boundary rates: the "Liggett boundaries" that corre…
We consider the simple exclusion process with $k$ particles on a segment of length $N$ performing random walks with transition $p>1/2$ to the right and $q=1-p$ to the left. We focus on the case where the asymmetry in the jump rates $b=p-q>0$ vanishes in the limit when $N$ and $k$ tend to infinity, and obtain sharp asymptotics for the mixing times of this sequence of Markov chains in the two cases where the asymmetry is either much larger or much smaller than $(\log k)/N$. We show that in the former case ($b \gg (\log k)/N$), the mixing time corresponds to the time needed to reach macroscopic e…
We analyze the mixing behavior of the biased exclusion process on a path of length $n$ as the bias $β_n$ tends to $0$ as $n \to \infty$. We show that the sequence of chains has a pre-cutoff, and interpolates between the unbiased exclusion and the process with constant bias. As the bias increases, the mixing time undergoes two phase transitions: one when $β_n$ is of order $1/n$, and the other when $β_n$ is order $\log n/n$.
We consider the exclusion process on segments of the integers in a site-dependent random environment. We assume to be in the ballistic regime in which a single particle has positive linear speed. Our goal is to study the mixing time of the exclusion process when the number of particles is linear in the size of the segment. We investigate the order of the mixing time depending on the support of the environment distribution. In particular, we prove for nestling environments that the order of the mixing time is different than in the case of a single particle.
We introduce a natural extension of the exclusion process to hypergraphs and prove an upper bound for its mixing time. In particular we show the existence of a constant $C$ such that for any connected, regular hypergraph $G$ within some natural class, the $\varepsilon$-mixing time of the exclusion process on $G$ with any feasible number of particles can be upper-bounded by $CT_{\text{EX}(2,G)}\log(|V|/\varepsilon)$, where $|V|$ is the number of vertices in $G$ and $T_{\text{EX}(2,G)}$ is the 1/4-mixing time of the corresponding exclusion process with just two particles. Moreover we show this i…
We show that for any attractive Glauber-Exclusion process on the one-dimensional lattice of size $N$ with periodic boundary condition, if the corresponding hydrodynamic limit equation has a reaction term with a strictly convex potential, then the total-variation mixing time is of order $O(\log N)$. In particular, the result covers the full high-temperature regime in the original model introduced by De Masi, Ferrari and Lebowitz (1985).
We prove that the equilibrium fluctuations of the symmetric simple exclusion process in contact with slow boundaries is given by an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process with Dirichlet, Robin or Neumann boundary conditions depending on the range of the parameter that rules the slowness of the boundaries.
We prove a general theorem on cutoffs for symmetric simple exclusion processes on graphs with open boundaries, under the natural assumption that the graphs converge geometrically and spectrally to a compact metric measure space with Dirichlet boundary condition. Our theorem is valid on a variety of settings including, but not limited to: the $d$-dimensional grid for every integer dimension $d$; and self-similar fractal graphs and products thereof. Our method of proof is to identify a rescaled version of the density fluctuation field---the cutoff martingale---which allows us to prove the mixing…
We investigate the fluctuations of cumulative density of particles in the asymmetric simple exclusion process with respect to the stationary distribution (also known as the steady state), as a stochastic process indexed by $[0,1]$. In three phases of the model and their boundaries within the fan region, we establish a complete picture of the scaling limits of the fluctuations of the density as the number of sites goes to infinity. In the maximal current phase, the limit fluctuation is the sum of two independent processes, a Brownian motion and a Brownian excursion. This extends an earlier resu…
We find the total variation mixing time of the interchange process on the dumbbell graph (two complete graphs, $K_n$ and $K_m$, connected by a single edge), and show that this sequence of chains exhibits the cutoff phenomenon precisely when the smaller size $m$ goes to infinity. The mixing time undergoes a phase transition at $m\asymp \sqrt{n}$. We also state a conjecture on when exactly cutoff holds for the interchange process on general graphs. Our proofs use coupling methods, and they also give the mixing time of the simple exclusion process of $k$ labelled particles in the complete graph $…
We study a multispecies generalization of a left-permeable asymmetric exclusion process (LPASEP) in one dimension with open boundaries. We determine all phases in the phase diagram using an exact projection to the LPASEP solved by us in a previous work. In most phases, we observe the phenomenon of dynamical expulsion of one or more species. We explain the density profiles in each phase using interacting shocks. This explanation is corroborated by simulations.
We study mixing times for the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) on a segment of size $N$ with open boundaries. We focus on the maximal current phase, and prove that the mixing time is of order $N^{3/2}$, up to logarithmic corrections. In the triple point, where the TASEP with open boundaries approaches the Uniform distribution on the state space, we show that the mixing time is precisely of order $N^{3/2}$. This is conjectured to be the correct order of the mixing time for a wide range of particle systems with maximal current. Our arguments rely on a connection to last-passag…
We consider the reversible exclusion process with reservoirs on arbitrary networks. We characterize the spectral gap, mixing time, and mixing window of the process, in terms of certain simple statistics of the underlying network. Among other consequences, we establish a non-conservative analogue of Aldous's spectral gap conjecture, and we show that cutoff occurs if and only if the product condition is satisfied. We illustrate this by providing explicit cutoffs on discrete lattices of arbitrary dimensions and boundary conditions, which substantially generalize recent one-dimensional results. We…
We consider the biased card shuffling and the Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (ASEP) on the segment. We obtain the asymptotic of their mixing times: our result show that these two continuous-time Markov chains display cutoff. Our analysis combines several ingredients including: a study of the hydrodynamic profile for ASEP, the use of monotonic eigenfunctions, stochastic comparisons and concentration inequalities.
Hydrodynamic limit for an open facilitated exclusion process with slow and fast boundaries
École Normale Supérieure (ENS) de Lyon（里昂高等师范学校）；Inria DRACULA, ICJ UMR5208, CNRS, École Centrale de Lyon, INSA Lyon, Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, Université Jean Monnet（法国国家信息与自动化研究所DRACULA团队，ICJ联合研究实验室，法国国家科学研究中心，里昂中央理工学院，里昂国立应用科学学院，里昂第一大学，让·莫内大学）；Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, ICJ UMR5208, CNRS, École Centrale de Lyon, INSA Lyon, Université Jean Monnet（里昂第一大学，ICJ联合研究实验室，法国国家科学研究中心，里昂中央理工学院，里昂国立应用科学学院，让·莫内大学）；GSSI（阿奎拉全球社会科学研究生院）
We consider a one-dimensional, weakly asymmetric, boundary driven exclusion process on the interval $[0,N]\cap Z$ in the super-diffusive time scale $N^2 ε^{-1}_N$, where $1\ll ε^{-1}_N \ll N^{1/4}$. We assume that the external field and the chemical potentials, which fix the density at the boundaries, evolve smoothly in the macroscopic time scale. We derive an equation which describes the evolution of the density up to the order $ε_N$.
In this paper, we will study the long time behavior of the simple symmetric exclusion process in the ``channel'' $Λ_N=[1,N]\cap \mathbb{N}$ with reservoirs at the boundaries. These reservoirs are also systems of particles which can be exchanged with the particles in the channel. The size $M$ of each reservoir is much larger than the one of the channel, i.e. $M=N^{1+α}$ for a fixed number $α>0$. Based on the size of the channel and the holding time at each reservoir, we will investigate some types of rescaling time.
Oliveira conjectured that the order of the mixing time of the exclusion process with $k$-particles on an arbitrary $n$-vertex graph is at most that of the mixing-time of $k$ independent particles. We verify this up to a constant factor for $d$-regular graphs when each edge rings at rate $1/d$ in various cases: (1) when $d = Ω( \log_{n/k} n)$, (2) when $\mathrm{gap}:=$ the spectral-gap of a single walk is $ O ( 1/\log^4 n) $ and $k \ge n^{Ω(1)}$, (3) when $k \asymp n^{a}$ for some constant $0<a<1$. In these cases our analysis yields a probabilistic proof of a weaker version of Aldous' famous sp…
The asymmetric exclusion process is an idealised stochastic model of transport, whose exact solution has given important insight into a general theory of nonequilibrium statistical physics. In this work, we consider a totally asymmetric exclusion process with multiple species of particles on a one-dimensional lattice in contact with reservoirs. We derive the exact nonequilibrium phase diagram for the system in the long time limit. We find two new phenomena in certain regions of the phase diagram: when the density of a species becomes zero throughout the system, and dynamical localisation when …
In this paper, we give a very accurate description of the way the simple exclusion process relaxes to equilibrium. Let $P_t$ denote the semi-group associated the exclusion on the circle with $2N$ sites and $N$ particles. For any initial condition $χ$, and for any $t\ge\frac{4N^2}{9π^2}\log N$, we show that the probability density $P_t(χ,\cdot)$ is given by an exponential tilt of the equilibrium measure by the main eigenfunction of the particle system. As $\frac{4N^2}{9π^2}\log N$ is smaller than the mixing time which is $\frac{N^2}{2π^2}\log N$, this allows to give a sharp description of the c…
Motivated by kinetically constrained interacting particle systems (KCM), we consider a reversible coalescing and branching simple exclusion process on a general finite graph $G=(V,E)$ dual to the biased voter model on $G$. Our main goal are tight bounds on its logarithmic Sobolev constant and relaxation time, with particular focus on the delicate slightly supercritical regime in which the equilibrium density of particles tends to zero as $|V|\rightarrow \infty$. Our results allow us to recover very directly and improve to $\ell^p$-mixing, $p\ge 2$, and to more general graphs, the mixing time r…
The misanthrope process is a class of stochastic interacting particle systems, generalizing the simple exclusion process. It allows each site of the lattice to accommodate more than one particle. We consider a special case of the one dimensional misanthrope process whose probability distribution is completely equivalent to the ordinary simple exclusion process under the periodic boundary condition. By imposing open boundaries, high- and low-density domains can coexist in the system, which we investigate by Monte Carlo simulations. We examine finite-size corrections of density profiles and corr…
We give a short and completely elementary method to find the full spectrum of the exclusion process and a nicely limited superset of the spectrum of the interchange process (a.k.a.\ random transpositions) on the complete graph. In the case of the exclusion process, this gives a simple closed form expression for all the eigenvalues and their multiplicities. This result is then used to give an exact expression for the distance in $ L^2 $ from stationarity at any time and upper and lower bounds on the convergence rate for the exclusion process. In the case of the interchange process, upper and lo…
We consider the nonabelian sandpile model defined on directed trees by Ayyer, Schilling, Steinberg and Thiéry (Commun. Math. Phys, 2013) and restrict it to the special case of a one-dimensional lattice of $n$ sites which has open boundaries and disordered hopping rates. We focus on the joint distribution of the integrated currents across each bond simultaneously, and calculate its cumulant generating function exactly. Surprisingly, the process conditioned on seeing specified currents across each bond turns out to be a renormalised version of the same process. We also remark on a duality proper…
We survey recent results concerning the total-variation mixing time of the simple exclusion process on the segment (symmetric and asymmetric) and a continuum analog, the simple random walk on the simplex with an emphasis on cutoff results. A Markov chain is said to exhibit cutoff if on a certain time scale, the distance to equilibrium drops abruptly from $1$ to $0$. We also review a couple of techniques used to obtain these results by exposing and commenting some elements of proof.
We consider the superposition of symmetric simple exclusion dynamics speeded-up in time, with spin-flip dynamics in a one-dimensional interval with periodic boundary conditions. We show that the mixing time has an exponential lower bound in the system size if the potential of the hydrodynamic equation has more than two local minima. We also apply our estimates to show that the normalized hitting times of rare events converge to a mean one exponential random variable if the potential has a unique minimum.
