Facilitated Exclusion Process in Higher Dimensions: Recurrent Structure and Transient Dynamics

Abstract

In this article, we study the facilitated exclusion process (FEP) on the $d$-dimensional discrete torus of side length $N$, with $d\ge2$. For Bernoulli initial data with a fixed density $ρ\in(0,1)$, we first prove that, with high probability, the particle-number sector selected by the initial configuration has a unique active recurrent class if $ρ>1-2^{-d}$ and multiple recurrent classes if $ρ<1-2^{-d}$. We then show that, for sufficiently small $ρ$, the process reaches an absorbing state (a singleton recurrent class) within a poly-logarithmic time in $N$ with high probability. In contrast, for $ρ\in(1/2,3/4)$ and even $N$, we establish a polynomial lower bound on the time required to reach the recurrent set. These results provide strong evidence for a double phase transition, analogous to absorbing-state phase transitions in the contact process, activated random walks, and stochastic sandpiles. To our knowledge, these are the first rigorous estimates for absorption and transient times for the FEP in dimensions two and higher.