Transition to self-organized criticality in a rice-pile mode

TL;DR

This paper introduces a one-dimensional rice-pile model demonstrating that non-power-law avalanche distributions in experiments are only apparent, and shows the robustness of self-organized criticality as system size increases.

Contribution

A novel rice-pile model explaining apparent deviations from power-law distributions and confirming the stability of self-organized criticality in larger systems.

Findings

The model reproduces non-power-law avalanche distributions observed experimentally.

Self-organized criticality remains robust as system size increases.

The apparent contradiction in experimental data is resolved by the model.

Abstract

The self-organized critical state is characterized by a power law distribution of cluster sizes and other properties. However experiments with sand and rice piles reveal distributions of avalanche sizes which are not power law distributed. In the present letter a one-dimensional rice-pile model which demonstrate that this is only an apparent contradiction is introduced. Moreover, a robustness of the self-organized critical state is obtained with increasing system size.