02-304 Marek Biskup, Philippe Blanchard, Lincoln Chayes, Daniel Gandolfo, Tyll Krueger

Phase transition and critical behavior in a model of organized criticality (451K, PDF Document) Jul 9, 02

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Abstract. We study a model of ``organized'' criticality, where a single avalanche propagates through an \textit{a priori} static (i.e., organized) sandpile configuration. The latter is chosen according to an i.i.d. distribution from a Borel probability measure $\rho$ on $[0,1]$. The avalanche dynamics is driven by a standard toppling rule, however, we simplify the geometry by placing the problem on a directed, rooted tree. As our main result, we characterize which $\rho$ are critical in the sense that they do not admit an infinite avalanche but exhibit a power-law decay of avalanche sizes. Our analysis reveals close connections to directed site-percolation, both in the characterization of criticality and in the values of the critical exponents.

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