Cutoffs for exclusion processes on graphs with open boundaries

We prove a general theorem on cutoffs for symmetric simple exclusion processes on graphs with open boundaries, under the natural assumption that the graphs converge geometrically and spectrally to a compact metric measure space with Dirichlet boundary condition. Our theorem is valid on a variety of settings including, but not limited to: the $d$-dimensional grid for every integer dimension $d$; and self-similar fractal graphs and products thereof. Our method of proof is to identify a rescaled version of the density fluctuation field—the cutoff martingale—which allows us to prove the mixing time upper bound that matches the lower bound obtained via Wilson’s method.