Scale-free energy dissipation and dynamic phase transition in stochastic sandpiles

Abstract

We study numerically scaling properties of the distribution of cumulative energy dissipated in an avalanche and the dynamic phase transition in a stochastic directed cellular automaton [B. Tadić and D. Dhar, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 79}, 1519 (1997)] in d=1+1 dimensions. In the critical steady state occurring for the probability of toppling $p\ge p^\star$= 0.70548, the dissipated energy distribution exhibits scaling behavior with new scaling exponents $τ_E $ and D_E for slope and cut-off energy, respectively, indicating that the sandpile surface is a fractal. In contrast to avalanche exponents, the energy exponents appear to be p- dependent in the region $p^\star \le p <1$, however the product $(τ_E-1)D_E$ remains universal. We estimate the roughness exponent of the transverse section of the pile as $χ=0.44\pm 0.04$. Critical exponents characterizing the dynamic phase transition at $p^\star $ are obtained by direct simulation and scaling analysis of the survival probability distribution and the average outflow current. The transition belongs to a new universality class with the critical exponents $ν_\| =γ=1.22 \pm 0.02$, $β=0.56\pm 0.02$ and $ν_\bot = 0.761 \pm 0.029$, with apparent violation of hyperscaling. Generalized hyperscaling relation leads to $β+ β^\prime = (d-1)ν_\bot $, where $β^\prime = 0.195 \pm 0.012$ is the exponent governed by the ultimate survival probability.