Transport-driven reorientation in a square lattice-gas model

We study the effect of an electric field on the rearrangement in a half-filled square lattice gas with repulsive first- and second-neighbor interactions. Below Tc the particles form parallel chains resulting in anisotropic conduction. Monte Carlo simulations show that these chains prefer the orientation parallel to the applied field. The reorientation time strongly depends on the temperature and the magnitude of electric field. A simple mean-field approximation suggests that the steady-state distribution is modified by the field component perpendicular to the chains.