Directed diffusion of reconstituting dimers

Abstract

We discuss the dynamical aspects of an asymmetric version of assisted diffusion of hard core particles on a ring studied by Menon et al (1997 J. Stat. Phys. 86 1237). The asymmetry brings in phenomena like kinematic waves and effects of the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang non-linearity, which combine with the feature of strongly broken ergodicity, a characteristic of the model. A central role is played by a single non-local invariant, the irreducible string, whose interplay with the driven motion of reconstituting dimers, arising from the assisted hopping, determines the asymptotic dynamics and scaling regimes. These are investigated both analytically and numerically through sector-dependent mappings to the asymmetric simple exclusion process.