Universal Scale-Free Decay of Tracer-Bath Correlations in -Dimensional Interacting Particle Systems
Phys. Rev. Lett. 135, 127101 – Published 15 September, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/55qy-sflc
Abstract
Quantifying the correlations between the position of a tagged tracer and the density of surrounding bath particles is crucial for understanding tracer diffusion in interacting particle systems, and for characterizing the response properties of the bath. We address this problem analytically for both hard-core and soft-core interactions, using minimal yet paradigmatic models in spatial dimensions. In both cases, we derive analytical expressions for the spatial correlation profiles in the reference frame of the tracer. We reveal unexpected universal features in their large-distance behavior, characterized by power-law tails with exponents that depend solely on the spatial dimensionality of the system. Beyond these simple models, we demonstrate the robustness of our results across different regimes using particle-based numerical simulations.
