Geometry-Controlled Initial-Density Dependence in Branching-Merging Exclusion Processes

Abstract

We study geometry-controlled, initial-density-dependent stationary states in exclusion processes with branching-merging structures. We consider two boundary geometries for connecting the parallel branches to the reservoirs: the \(1\)-\(n\)-\(1\) model, in which a single lane branches into \(n\) parallel lanes and then merges back into a single lane, and the \(0\)-\(n\)-\(0\) model, in which particles directly enter and leave the \(n\) parallel lanes. For both models, we derive critical initial densities separating the low-density, shock-wave, and high-density regimes, and show that the theoretical predictions reproduce the phase diagrams and branch-averaged densities observed in simulations. In the \(1\)-\(n\)-\(1\) geometry, the critical initial densities depend on both the number of branches and the lengths of the upstream and downstream single-lane segments, whereas in the \(0\)-\(n\)-\(0\) geometry the corresponding estimates depend only on the number of branches. These results show that initial-condition dependence can arise from the global geometry of a branching-merging exclusion process, even without an explicit friction rule at the merging point.