Hybrid Phase Transition into an Absorbing State: Percolation and Avalanches

Abstract

Interdependent networks are more fragile under random attacks than simplex networks, because interlayer dependencies lead to cascading failures and finally to a sudden collapse. This is a hybrid phase transition (HPT), meaning that at the transition point the order parameter has a jump but there are also critical phenomena related to it. Here we study these phenomena on the Erdős--Rényi and the two dimensional interdependent networks and show that the hybrid percolation transition exhibits two kinds of critical behaviors: divergence of the fluctuations of the order parameter and power-law size distribution of finite avalanches at a transition point. At the transition point, avalanches of infinite size occur thus the avalanche statistics also has the nature of a HPT. The exponent $β_m$ of the order parameter is $1/2$ under general conditions, while the value of the exponent $γ_m$ characterizing the fluctuations of the order parameter depends on the system. The critical behavior of the finite avalanches can be described by another set of exponents, $β_a$ and $γ_a$. These two critical behaviors are coupled by a scaling law: $1-β_m=γ_a$.