Bimodal response in periodically driven diffusive systems

Entrainment in the master equation

The master equation plays an important role in many scientific fields including physics, chemistry, systems biology, physical finance and sociodynamics. We consider the master equation with periodic transition rates. This may represent an external periodic excitation like the 24 h solar day in biological systems or periodic traffic lights in a model of vehicular traffic. Using tools from systems and control theory, we prove that under mild technical conditions every solution of the master equation converges to a periodic solution with the same period as the rates. In other words, the master equation entrains (or phase locks) to periodic excitations. We describe two applications of our theoretical results to important models from statistical mechanics and epidemiology.

Dynamical phase transitions in totally asymmetric simple exclusion processes with two types of particles under periodically driven boundary conditions

Driven diffusive systems have provided simple models for nonequilibrium systems with nontrivial structures. Steady-state behavior of these systems with constant boundary conditions have been studied extensively. Comparatively less work has been carried out on the responses of these systems to time-dependent parameters. We report the modifications to the probability density function of a two-particle exclusion model in response to a periodically changing perturbation to its boundary conditions. The changes in the shape of the distribution as a function of the frequency of the perturbation contains considerable structure. A dynamical phase transition in which the system response changes abruptly as a function of perturbation frequency was observed. We interpret this structure to be a consequence of the existence of a typical time scale associated with the dynamics of density shock profiles within the system.