Onset of ordering in driven bilayer lattice gases

We investigate the phase diagram of a system with two layers of an Ising lattice gas at half filling, as a function of the inter-layer coupling J, keeping the usual intra-layer nearest-neighbor attraction constant. In equilibrium, the phase diagram is symmetric underJ → −J, but exhibits different ground states. The effects of imposing a uniform external drive are studied by simulation and analytic techniques. In particular, we attempt to develop a simple intuitive picture which allows us to predict the approximate location of Tc in driven lattice gases.