Self-Organized Bistability Associated With First-Order Phase Transitions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a theory explaining how systems with first-order phase transitions self-organize to exhibit bimodal activity distributions, including regular and anomalous avalanches, relevant across various scientific fields.

Contribution

It presents a novel theoretical framework for self-organization to phase-coexistence in systems undergoing first-order transitions, extending the concept of self-organized criticality.

Findings

Explains coexistence of regular and anomalous avalanches.

Accounts for bimodal activity distributions observed empirically.

Applicable to diverse physical and biological systems.

Abstract

Self-organized criticality elucidates the conditions under which physical and biological systems tune themselves to the edge of a second-order phase transition, with scale invariance. Motivated by the empirical observation of bimodal distributions of activity in neuroscience and other fields, we propose and analyze a theory for the self-organization to the point of phase-coexistence in systems exhibiting a first-order phase transition. It explains the emergence of regular avalanches with attributes of scale-invariance which coexist with huge anomalous ones, with realizations in many fields.