A report on Statistical Properties of directed avalanches

by Prof. Deepak Dhar (TIFR)

Wednesday 3 Nov 2010, 14:30 → 15:30 Asia/Kolkata

A-304 (Colaba Campus)

The critical exponents for directed Manna sandpile model were derived by Paczuski and Bassler [Phys. Rev. E 62, 5347 (2000)], and by Kloster et al [Phys. Rev. E 63, 026111 (2001)] using field theory techniques. This paper re-examines this issue, and argues that while the exponent values may still be correct, the derivations make several assumptions that are indeed incorrect. In fact, important qualitative features of actual avalanches, seen in extensive numerical simulations, are not correctly described by the field-theory description. I will summarize the original arguments, and Bunzarova's criticism.