Current fluctuations of diffusive systems with a battery

Abstract: For a diffusive system on a ring, with a battery at the origin, we use the macroscopic fluctuation theory (MFT) to obtain the large deviation function of the current. In the case of non-interacting particles, the predictions of the MFT agree with the result of a direct exact microscopic calculation. To our surprise, the large deviation function of non-interacting particles with a battery has the same form as for the Symmetric Simple Exclusion Process (SSEP) with open boundary conditions. For the SSEP on a ring with a battery, the predictions of the MFT seem to agree with the results of long Monte Carlo simulations, although much longer simulations would be needed to better test the validity of these predictions.