Avalanche Prediction in a Self-Organized Pile of Beads

O. Ramos, E. Altshuler, and K. J. Måløy
Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 078701 – Published 19 February 2009

Abstract

It is a common belief that power-law distributed avalanches are inherently unpredictable. This idea affects phenomena as diverse as evolution, earthquakes, superconducting vortices, stock markets, etc., from atomic to social scales. It mainly comes from the concept of “self-organized criticality” (SOC), where criticality is interpreted in the way that, at any moment, any small avalanche can eventually cascade into a large event. Nevertheless, this work demonstrates experimentally the possibility of avalanche prediction in the classical paradigm of SOC: a pile of grains. By knowing the position of every grain in a two-dimensional pile, avalanches of moving grains follow a distinct power-law distribution. Large avalanches, although uncorrelated, are on average preceded by continuous, detectable variations in the internal structure of the pile that are monitored in order to achieve prediction.

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  • Received 28 July 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.078701

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

O. Ramos1,2,*, E. Altshuler3, and K. J. Måløy1

  • 1Department of Physics, University of Oslo, P.O.B. 1048, Blindern N-0316, Oslo, Norway
  • 2Laboratoire de Physique, CNRS UMR 5672, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 allée d’Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France
  • 3“Henri Poincaré” Group of Complex Systems, Physics Faculty, University of Havana, 10400 Havana, Cuba

  • *osvanny.ramos.rosales@ens-lyon.fr

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Vol. 102, Iss. 7 — 20 February 2009

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