Superdiffusive Invariance Principle for the two-dimensional Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process

Abstract

We consider the Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (ASEP) at its critical dimension $d=2$, started from the Bernoulli product measure with density $ρ\in (0,1)$. We first derive the sharp $\log(t)^{2/3}$ divergence of the bulk diffusivity, predicted via mode-coupling theory in [H. van Beijeren, R. Kutner, H. Spohn, Phys. Rev. Lett., 1985], including the exact prefactor, thereby removing the subleading diverging multiplicative corrections in the Tauberian bounds of [H.-T. Yau, Ann. of Math., 2004]. More importantly, we establish an invariance principle for the density fluctuation field on the corresponding superdiffusive scales. On the time scale $τ$, we rescale space by $\sqrtτ \log(τ)^{1/3}$ in the direction of the drift and by $\sqrtτ$ in the transverse direction, and prove functional convergence of the rescaled fluctuation process to the solution of a conservative stochastic heat equation with additive noise. This is the same explicit Gaussian Fixed Point obtained in [G. Cannizzaro, Q. Moulard, F. Toninelli, arXiv:2501.00344, 2025] for the two-dimensional Stochastic Burgers Equation (SBE). We also deduce a superdiffusive central limit theorem for the second-class particle under the same anisotropic rescaling. The result holds for any finite-range jump kernel with nonzero drift and uniaxial asymmetry. This is the first space-time scaling limit result for a nonequilibrium interacting particle system at the critical dimension, where Gaussian fluctuations emerge despite logarithmic corrections to the scaling. The proof uses an approximate fluctuation-dissipation relation, which is obtained by combining a sharp quantitative comparison between the ASEP and SBE generators with refined estimates on the SBE Ansatz. An additional key novelty is a tightness argument that overcomes the limitations of the Itô trick on superdiffusive scales.