EPL (Europhysics Letters)

DOI: 10.1209/epl/i1999-00184-7

Europhys. Lett, 45 (4), pp. 431-436 (1999)

Long-range order in a quasi one-dimensional non-equilibrium three-state lattice gas

G. Korniss ¹, B. Schmittmann ² and R. K. P. Zia ²

¹ Supercomputer Computations Research Institute, Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4130, USA
² Department of Physics and Center for Stochastic Processes in Science and Engineering
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University - Blacksburg, VA. 24061-0435, USA

(received 1 September 1998; accepted in final form 1 December 1998)

PACS. 05.20-y - Classical statistical mechanics.
PACS. 64.60Cn - Order-disorder transformations; statistical mechanics of model systems.
PACS. 64.75+g - Solubility, segregation, and mixing; phase separation.

Abstract:

Biased diffusion of two species with conserved dynamics on a 2 $\times$ L periodic lattice is studied via Monte Carlo simulations. In contrast to its simple one-dimensional version on a ring, this quasi one-dimensional model surprisingly exhibits phase separation in its steady state, which is characterized by one macroscopic particle cluster. We study the order parameter and the cluster-size distributions as a function of the system size L, to support the above picture.

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