Universal cumulants of the current in diffusive systems on a ring

We calculate exactly the first cumulants of the integrated current and of the activity (which is the total number of changes of configurations) of the symmetric simple exclusion process on a ring with periodic boundary conditions. Our results indicate that for large system sizes the large deviation functions of the current and of the activity take a universal scaling form, with the same scaling function for both quantities. This scaling function can be understood either by an analysis of Bethe ansatz equations or in terms of a theory based on fluctuating hydrodynamics or on the macroscopic fluctuation theory of Bertini, De Sole, Gabrielli, Jona-Lasinio, and Landim.