Viability of competing field theories for the driven lattice gas

Abstract

It has recently been suggested that the driven lattice gas should be described by a novel field theory in the limit of infinite drive. We review the original and the new field theory, invoking several well-documented key features of the microscopics. Since the new field theory fails to reproduce these characteristics, we argue that it cannot serve as a viable description of the driven lattice gas. Recent results, for the critical exponents associated with this theory, are re-analyzed and shown to be incorrect.