Stationary Currents in Particle Systems with Constrained Hopping Rates

We study the effect on the stationary currents of constraints affecting the hopping rates in stochastic particle systems. In the framework of zero range processes with drift within a finite volume, we discuss how the current is reduced by the presence of the constraint and deduce exact formulae, fully explicit in some cases. The model discussed here has been introduced by Cirillo et al. (Does communication enhance pedestrians transport in the dark? To appear in C. R. Mécanique 344 (2016), 19-23) and is relevant for the description of pedestrian motion in elongated dark corridors, where the constraint on the hopping rates can be related to limitations on the interaction distance among pedestrians, but finds also applications in the modeling of various transport phenomena.