Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Singularities of dynamical large-deviation functions are often interpreted as the signal of a dynamical phase transition and the coexistence of distinct dynamical phases, by analogy with the correspondence between singularities of free energies and equilibrium phase behavior. Here we study models of driven random walkers on a lattice. These models display large-deviation singularities in the limit of large lattice size, but the extent to which each model's phenomenology resembles a phase transition depends on the details of the driving. We also compare the behavior of ergodic and nonergodic models that present large-deviation singularities. We argue that dynamical large-deviation singularities indicate the divergence of a model timescale, but not necessarily one associated with cooperative behavior or the existence of distinct phases.