The gradient flow approach to hydrodynamic limits for the simple exclusion process

Abstract

We present a new approach to prove the macroscopic hydrodynamic behaviour for interacting particle systems, and as an example we treat the wellknown case of the symmetric simple exclusion process (SSEP). More precisely, we characterize any possible limit of its empirical density measures as solutions to the heat equation by passing to the limit in the gradient flow structure of the particle system.