Dissipative sandpile models with universal exponents

Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2006 May;73(5 Pt 2):056125. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.73.056125. Epub 2006 May 25.

Abstract

We consider a dissipative variant of the stochastic-Abelian sandpile model on a two-dimensional lattice. The boundaries are closed and the dissipation is due to the fact that each toppled grain is removed from the lattice with probability epsilon. It is shown that the scaling properties of this model are in the universality class of the stochastic-Abelian models with conservative dynamics and open boundaries. In particular, the dissipation rate epsilon can be adjusted according to a suitable function epsilon = f(L), such that the avalanche size distribution will coincide with that of the conservative model on a finite lattice of size L.