Numerical study of the Langevin theory for fixed-energy sandpiles

Dynamic correlations in the conserved Manna sandpile

We study dynamic correlations for current and mass, as well as the associated power spectra, in the one-dimensional conserved Manna sandpile. We show that, in the thermodynamic limit, the variance of cumulative bond current up to time T grows subdiffusively as T^{1/2-μ} with the exponent μ≥0 depending on the density regimes considered and, likewise, the power spectra of current and mass at low frequency f varies as f^{1/2+μ} and f^{-3/2+μ}, respectively. Our theory predicts that, far from criticality, μ=0 and, near criticality, μ=(β+1)/2ν_{⊥}z>0 with β, ν_{⊥}, and z being the order parameter, correlation length, and dynamic exponents, respectively. The anomalous suppression of fluctuations near criticality signifies a "dynamic hyperuniformity," characterized by a set of fluctuation relations, in which current, mass, and tagged-particle displacement fluctuations are shown to have a precise quantitative relationship with the density-dependent activity (or its derivative). In particular, the relation, D_{s}(ρ[over ¯])=a(ρ[over ¯])/ρ[over ¯], between the self-diffusion coefficient D_{s}(ρ[over ¯]), activity a(ρ[over ¯]) and density ρ[over ¯] explains a previous simulation observation [Eur. Phys. J. B 72, 441 (2009)10.1140/epjb/e2009-00367-0] that, near criticality, the self-diffusion coefficient in the Manna sandpile has the same scaling behavior as the activity.

Critical density of the Abelian Manna model via a multitype branching process

A multitype branching process is introduced to mimic the evolution of the avalanche activity and determine the critical density of the Abelian Manna model. This branching process incorporates partially the spatiotemporal correlations of the activity, which are essential for the dynamics, in particular in low dimensions. An analytical expression for the critical density in arbitrary dimensions is derived, which significantly improves the results over mean-field theories, as confirmed by comparison to the literature on numerical estimates from simulations. The method can easily be extended to lattices and dynamics other than those studied in the present work.

Hydrodynamics, density fluctuations, and universality in conserved stochastic sandpiles

We study conserved stochastic sandpiles (CSSs), which exhibit an active-absorbing phase transition upon tuning density ρ. We demonstrate that a broad class of CSSs possesses a remarkable hydrodynamic structure: There is an Einstein relation σ^{2}(ρ)=χ(ρ)/D(ρ), which connects bulk-diffusion coefficient D(ρ), conductivity χ(ρ), and mass fluctuation, or scaled variance of subsystem mass, σ^{2}(ρ). Consequently, density large-deviations are governed by an equilibrium-like chemical potential μ(ρ)∼lna(ρ), where a(ρ) is the activity in the system. By using the above hydrodynamics, we derive two scaling relations: As Δ=(ρ-ρ_{c})→0^{+}, ρ_{c} being the critical density, (i) the mass fluctuation σ^{2}(ρ)∼Δ^{1-δ} with δ=0 and (ii) the dynamical exponent z=2+(β-1)/ν_{⊥}, expressed in terms of two static exponents β and ν_{⊥} for activity a(ρ)∼Δ^{β} and correlation length ξ∼Δ^{-ν_{⊥}}, respectively. Our results imply that conserved Manna sandpile, a well studied variant of the CSS, belongs to a distinct universality-not that of directed percolation (DP), which, without any conservation law as such, does not obey scaling relation (ii).

Hyperuniformity of initial conditions and critical decay of a diffusive epidemic process belonging to the Manna class

For a fixed-energy Manna sandpile model belonging to a Manna class in one dimension (d=1), we recently showed that the critical decay is different for random and regular initial conditions (ICs). Compared with previous results of natural IC for several models, we suggested for the Manna class that the critical decay depends on the characteristics of the three ICs. But the dependence on the random and regular ICs was shown only for a single model. In this work, we study the critical decay for the random and regular ICs for another model of the Manna class in d=1, a diffusive epidemic process. It is shown that the critical decay exponent agrees with the previous result for each IC, which verifies that IC dependence is a common feature of the Manna class. In addition, for the random and regular ICs, we measure the variance σ^{2}(r) of total particle density in a region of size r by increasing r up to system size and investigate its temporal evolution toward the value σ_{q}^{2}(r) of the quasisteady state at criticality. In d=1,σ^{2}(r) scales as σ^{2}(r)∼r^{-ψ} with ψ=1 for random distributions and 1<ψ≤2 for hyperuniform ones. The temporal evolution shows that σ^{2}(r) of the two ICs differently relax toward σ_{q}^{2}(r) and the regular IC becomes a hyperuniform distribution of ψ=2 in the beginning of the evolution. We estimate ψ=1.45(3) for both the quasisteady state and absorbing states, so the quasisteady state is also as hyperuniform as absorbing states. The hyperuniformity of the quasisteady state shows that the natural IC also should be hyperuniform as much as the quasisteady state, because the natural IC is obtained from particle configurations close to the quasisteady state. Consequently, the different ψ of the three ICs suggest that σ^{2}(r) can classify the characteristics of the three ICs in a unified way and the different degree of hyperuniformity of the ICs provides another explanation for the observed IC-dependent critical decay in a point of view of initial fluctuations and correlations.

Oslo model, hyperuniformity, and the quenched Edwards-Wilkinson model

We present simulations of the one-dimensional Oslo rice pile model in which the critical height at each site is randomly reset after each toppling. We use the fact that the stationary state of this sand-pile model is hyperuniform to reach system of sizes >10^{7}. Most previous simulations were seriously flawed by important finite-size corrections. We find that all critical exponents have values consistent with simple rationals: ν=4/3 for the correlation length exponent, D=9/4 for the fractal dimension of avalanche clusters, and z=10/7 for the dynamical exponent. In addition, we relate the hyperuniformity exponent to the correlation length exponent ν. Finally, we discuss the relationship with the quenched Edwards-Wilkinson model, where we find in particular that the local roughness exponent is α_{loc}=1.

Critical behavior for random initial conditions in the one-dimensional fixed-energy Manna sandpile model

A fixed-energy Manna sandpile model undergoes an absorbing phase transition at a critical ρ_{c}, where an order parameter ϕ(t) decays as t^{-α} in time t. As the prototype of the Manna class, the model has been extensively studied in one dimension. However, the previous estimates of ρ_{c} and some critical exponents are different, depending on the types of initial conditions; random, natural, and regular conditions. The estimates of ρ_{c} for the random and the regular conditions are the lower and the upper bound among currently known estimates, respectively. In this work, for the random conditions, ρ_{c} and α are measured by taking into account finite-size (FS) effects. At the previous estimate of ρ_{c}, simulation results show that the temporal decay of ϕ(t) is strongly affected by the FS effects up to much larger system size (∼10^{6}). For the sizes for which ϕ(t) is independent up to t=2×10^{7}, we estimate ρ_{c}=0.8925(1) and α=0.110(5), which clearly differ from the previous results for the random conditions, ρ_{c}=0.89199(5) and α=0.141(24). Instead, the present ρ_{c} agrees with ρ_{c}=0.89255(2) of the regular conditions. In addition, the present α is substantially distinguishable from the results of the other types of initial conditions, α=0.159(3) and 0.146(2) for the natural and the regular conditions, respectively, which supports the claim of the initial condition dependence of dynamical exponents in the Manna class.

Critical behavior of a fixed-energy Manna sandpile model for regular initial conditions in one dimension

For a fixed-energy (FE) Manna sandpile model in one dimension, we investigate the critical behavior for regular initial conditions in which activities are distributed at regular intervals on average. The FE Manna model conserves the density ρ of total particles and undergoes an absorbing phase transition at a critical ρ(c). For the regular initial conditions, we show via extensive simulations that the dynamical scaling behaviors differ from those of the random and the natural initial conditions. Off-critical scaling exponents β and ν(⊥) are also measured and shown to agree well with the values of the directed percolation (DP) class as reported by Basu et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 015702 (2012)]. Our results suggest that the dynamical scaling behaviors depend on the characteristics of initial conditions, but the off-critical scaling behaviors in the steady state are independent of initial conditions and belong to the DP class.

Particle-density fluctuations and universality in the conserved stochastic sandpile

We examine fluctuations in particle density in the restricted-height, conserved stochastic sandpile (CSS). In this and related models, the global particle density is a temperaturelike control parameter. Thus local fluctuations in this density correspond to disorder; if this disorder is a relevant perturbation of directed percolation (DP), then the CSS should exhibit non-DP critical behavior. We analyze the scaling of the variance Vℓ of the number of particles in regions of ℓd sites in extensive simulations of the quasistationary state in one and two dimensions. Our results, combined with a Harris-like argument for the relevance of particle-density fluctuations, strongly suggest that conserved stochastic sandpiles belong to a universality class distinct from that of DP.

Absorbing-state phase transitions: exact solutions of small systems

I derive precise results for absorbing-state phase transitions using exact (numerically determined) quasistationary (QS) probability distributions for small systems. Analysis of the contact process on rings of 23 or fewer sites yields critical properties (control parameter, order-parameter ratios, and critical exponents z and betanu_(perpendicular)) with an accuracy of 0.06% or better; precise results are also obtained for the pair contact process. The QS distribution yields insights on the statistical entropy of these models. Preliminary application to a model in the stochastic sandpile class is also described.

Criticality of a contact process with coupled diffusive and non-diffusive fields

We investigate the critical behavior of a model with two coupled critical densities, one of which is diffusive. The model simulates the propagation of an epidemic process in a population, which uses the underlying lattice to leave a track of the recent disease history. We determine the critical density of the population above which the system reaches an active stationary state with a finite density of active particles. We also perform a scaling analysis to determine the order parameter, the correlation length, and critical relaxation exponents. We show that the model does not belong to the usual directed percolation universality class and is compatible with the class of directed percolation with diffusive and conserved fields.

Sticky grains do not change the universality class of isotropic sandpiles

We revisit the sandpile model with "sticky" grains introduced by Mohanty and Dhar [Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 104303 (2002)] whose scaling properties were claimed to be generically in the universality class of directed percolation for both isotropic and directed models. While for directed models this conclusion is unquestionable, for isotropic models we present strong evidence that the asymptotic scaling in the self-organized regime (in which a stationary critical state exists in the limit of slow driving and vanishing dissipation rate) is, like other stochastic sandpiles, generically in the Manna universality class. This conclusion is drawn from extensive Monte Carlo simulations, and is strengthened by the analysis of the Langevin equations (proposed by the same authors to account for this problem), argued to converge upon coarse-graining to the well-established set of Langevin equations for the Manna class.

Critical exponents for the restricted sandpile

I report large-scale Monte Carlo studies of a one-dimensional height-restricted stochastic sandpile using the quasistationary simulation method. Results for systems of up to 50 000 sites yield estimates for critical exponents that differ significantly from those obtained using smaller systems, but are consistent with recent predictions derived from a Langevin equation for stochastic sandpiles [Ramasco, Phys. Rev. E 69, 045105(R) (2004)]. This suggests that apparent violations of universality in one-dimensional sandpiles are due to strong corrections to scaling and finite-size effects.

Simple sandpile model of active-absorbing state transitions

We study a simple sandpile model of active-absorbing state transitions in which a particle can hop out of a site only if the number of particles at that site is above a certain threshold. We show that the active phase has product measure whereas nontrivial correlations are found numerically in the absorbing phase. It is argued that the system relaxes to the latter phase slower than exponentially. The critical behavior of this model is found to be different from that of the other known universality classes.

Integration of Langevin equations with multiplicative noise and the viability of field theories for absorbing phase transitions

Efficient and accurate integration of stochastic (partial) differential equations with multiplicative noise can be obtained through a split-step scheme, which separates the integration of the deterministic part from that of the stochastic part, the latter being performed by sampling exactly the solution of the associated Fokker-Planck equation. We demonstrate the computational power of this method by applying it to the most absorbing phase transitions for which Langevin equations have been proposed. This provides precise estimates of the associated scaling exponents, clarifying the classification of these nonequilibrium problems, and confirms or refutes some existing theories.