A STOCHASTIC BURGERS EQUATION FROM A CLASS OF MICROSCOPIC INTERACTIONS

We consider a class of nearest-neighbor weakly asymmetric mass conservative particle systems evolving on Z, which includes zero-range and types of exclusion processes, starting from a perturbation of a stationary state. When the weak asymmetry is of order O (n(-gamma)) for 1/2 < gamma <= 1, we show that the scaling limit of the fluctuation field, as seen across process characteristics, is a generalized Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. However, at the critical weak asymmetry when gamma = 1/2, we show that all limit points satisfy a martingale formulation which may be interpreted in terms of a stochastic Burgers equation derived from taking the gradient of the KPZ equation. The proofs make use of a sharp "Boltzmann-Gibbs" estimate which improves on earlier bounds.