Some recent developments in models with absorbing states

We describe some of the recent results obtained for models with absorbing states. First, we present the nonequilibrium absorbing-state Potts model and discuss some of the factors that might affect the critical behaviour of such models. In particular we show that in two dimensions the further neighbour interactions might split the voter critical point into two critical points. We also describe some of the results obtained in the context of synchronization of chaotic dynamical systems. Moreover, we discuss the relation of the synchronization transition with some interfacial models.Comment: 8 pages, Brazilian J. of Physics (in press

Slow dynamics in a driven two-lane particle system

We study a two-lane model of two-species of particles that perform biased diffusion. Extensive numerical simulations show that when bias q is strong enough oppositely drifting particles form some clusters that block each other. Coarsening of such clusters is very slow and their size increases logarithmically in time. For smaller q particles collapse essentially on a single cluster whose size seems to diverge at a certain value of q=q_c. Simulations show that despite slow coarsening, the model has rather large power-law cooling-rate effects. It makes its dynamics different from glassy systems, but similar to some three-dimensional Ising-type models (gonihedric models).Comment: minor changes, final versio