Transition to Shocks in TASEP and Decoupling of Last Passage Times

Abstract: We consider the totally asymmetric simple exclusion process in a critical scaling parametrized by $a\geq0$, which creates a shock in the particle density of order $aT^{-1/3},$ $T$ the observation time. When starting from step initial data, we provide bounds on the limiting law which in particular imply that in the double limit $\lim_{a \to \infty}\lim_{T \to \infty}$ one recovers the product limit law and the degeneration of the correlation length observed at shocks of order $1$. This result is shown to apply to a general last-passage percolation model. We also obtain bounds on the two-point functions of several $\mathrm{Airy}$ processes.