Universality in Sandpiles, Interface Depinning, and Earthquake Models

Maya Paczuski and Stefan Boettcher
Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 111 – Published 1 July 1996
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Abstract

Recent numerical results for a model describing dispersive transport in ricepiles are explained by mapping the model to the depinning transition of an elastic interface that is dragged at one end through a random medium. The average velocity of transport vanishes with system size L as vL2DL0.23, and the avalanche size distribution exponent τ=21/D1.55, where D2.23 from interface depinning. We conjecture that the purely deterministic Burridge-Knopoff “train” model for earthquakes is in the same universality class.

  • Received 15 March 1996

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.77.111

©1996 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Maya Paczuski1 and Stefan Boettcher2

  • 1Department of Physics, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019-0225

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Vol. 77, Iss. 1 — 1 July 1996

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