Nonequilibrium Steady States of Matrix Product Form: A Solver's Guide

We consider the general problem of determining the steady state of stochastic nonequilibrium systems such as those that have been used to model (among other things) biological transport and traffic flow. We begin with a broad overview of this class of driven diffusive systems - which includes exclusion processes - focusing on interesting physical properties, such as shocks and phase transitions. We then turn our attention specifically to those models for which the exact distribution of microstates in the steady state can be expressed in a matrix product form. In addition to a gentle introduction to this matrix product approach, how it works and how it relates to similar constructions that arise in other physical contexts, we present a unified, pedagogical account of the various means by which the statistical mechanical calculations of macroscopic physical quantities are actually performed. We also review a number of more advanced topics, including nonequilibrium free energy functionals, the classification of exclusion processes involving multiple particle species, existence proofs of a matrix product state for a given model and more complicated variants of the matrix product state that allow various types of parallel dynamics to be handled. We conclude with a brief discussion of open problems for future research.Comment: 127 pages, 31 figures, invited topical review for J. Phys. A (uses IOP class file

Formulae for Askey–Wilson moments and enumeration of staircase tableaux

Abstract. We explain how the moments of the (weight function of the) Askey Wilson polynomials are related to the enumeration of the staircase tableaux introduced by the first and fourth authors [11, 12]. This gives us a direct combinatorial formula for these moments, which is related to, but more elegant than the formula given in [11]. Then we use techniques developed by Ismail and the third author to give explicit formulae for these moments and for the enumeration of staircase tableaux. Finally we study the enumeration of staircase tableaux at various specializations of the parameterizations; for example, we obtain the Catalan numbers, Fibonacci numbers, Eulerian numbers, the number of permutations, and the number of matchings. [Keywords: staircase tableaux, asymmetric exclusion process, Askey-Wilson polynomials, permutations, matchings] Content

Formulae for Askey-Wilson moments and enumeration of staircase tableaux

We explain how the moments of the (weight function of the) Askey-Wilson polynomials are related to the enumeration of the staircase tableaux introduced by the first and fourth authors. This gives us a direct combinatorial formula for these moments, which is related to, but more elegant than the formula given in their earlier paper. Then we use techniques developed by Ismail and the third author to give explicit formulae for these moments and for the enumeration of staircase tableaux. Finally we study the enumeration of staircase tableaux at various specializations of the parameterizations; for example, we obtain the Catalan numbers, Fibonacci numbers, Eulerian numbers, the number of permutations, and the number of matchings