Dragon kings in self-organized criticality systems

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates analytically that dragon kings, or extreme events, can arise in self-organized criticality systems due to the interplay between driving impulse and dissipation, providing insights into their occurrence and risk mitigation.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework showing how dragon kings emerge in SOC systems and classifies different types, linking dissipation and driving to extreme event risk.

Findings

Dragon kings can form in SOC systems due to specific parameter tradeoffs.

Higher dissipation and smoother driving reduce the likelihood of extreme events.

The paper provides an analytical basis for understanding and classifying extreme events in SOC.

Abstract

The spontaneous emergence of scale invariance, called self-organized criticality (SOC), is often attributed to a second-order absorbing-state phase transition (ASPT). Many real-world systems display SOC, yet extreme events are often overrepresented, causing significant disruption, and are called dragon kings (DK). We show analytically that the tradeoff between driving impulse and dissipation rate can create DKs in a second-order ASPT. This establishes that DKs exist in SOC systems, reveals a taxonomy of DKs, and shows that larger dissipation and smoother driving lower risk of extreme events.