Unusual shock wave in two-species driven systems with an umbilic point

Abstract

Using dynamical Monte-Carlo simulations we observe the occurrence of an unexpected shock wave in driven diffusive systems with two conserved species of particles. This U-shock is microscopically sharp, but does not satisfy the usual criteria for the stability of shocks. Exact analysis of the large-scale hydrodynamic equations of motion reveals the presence of an umbilical point which we show to be responsible for this phenomenon. We prove that such an umbilical point is a general feature of multi-species driven diffusive systems with reflection symmetry of the bulk dynamics. We argue that an U-shock will occur whenever there are strong repulsive interactions such that the current-density relation develops a double-well and the umbilical point becomes isolated.