Irreversible Local Markov Chains with Rapid Convergence towards Equilibrium.

We study the continuous one-dimensional hard-sphere model and present irreversible local Markov chains that mix on faster time scales than the reversible heat bath or Metropolis algorithms. The mixing time scales appear to fall into two distinct universality classes, both faster than for reversible local Markov chains. The event-chain algorithm, the infinitesimal limit of one of these Markov chains, belongs to the class presenting the fastest decay. For the lattice-gas limit of the hard-sphere model, reversible local Markov chains correspond to the symmetric simple exclusion process (SEP) with periodic boundary conditions. The two universality classes for irreversible Markov chains are realized by the totally asymmetric SEP (TASEP), and by a faster variant (lifted TASEP) that we propose here. We discuss how our irreversible hard-sphere Markov chains generalize to arbitrary repulsive pair interactions and carry over to higher dimensions through the concept of lifted Markov chains and the recently introduced factorized Metropolis acceptance rule.