A note on the abelian sandpile in Z^d

We analyse the abelian sandpile model on \mathbbm{Z}^d for the starting configuration of $n$ particles in the origin and $2d-2$ particles otherwise. We give a new short proof of the theorem of Fey, Levine and Peres \cite{FLP} that the radius of the toppled cluster of this configuration is $O(n^{1/d})$

Driving sandpiles to criticality and beyond

A popular theory of self-organized criticality relates driven dissipative systems to systems with conservation. This theory predicts that the stationary density of the abelian sandpile model equals the threshold density of the fixed-energy sandpile. We refute this prediction for a wide variety of underlying graphs, including the square grid. Driven dissipative sandpiles continue to evolve even after reaching criticality. This result casts doubt on the validity of using fixed-energy sandpiles to explore the critical behavior of the abelian sandpile model at stationarity.Comment: v4 adds referenc

Growth Rates and Explosions in Sandpiles

We study the abelian sandpile growth model, where n particles are added at the origin on a stable background configuration in Z^d. Any site with at least 2d particles then topples by sending one particle to each neighbor. We find that with constant background height h <= 2d-2, the diameter of the set of sites that topple has order n^{1/d}. This was previously known only for h<d. Our proof uses a strong form of the least action principle for sandpiles, and a novel method of background modification. We can extend this diameter bound to certain backgrounds in which an arbitrarily high fraction of sites have height 2d-1. On the other hand, we show that if the background height 2d-2 is augmented by 1 at an arbitrarily small fraction of sites chosen independently at random, then adding finitely many particles creates an explosion (a sandpile that never stabilizes).Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Journal of Statistical Physics. v2 corrects the proof of the outer bound of Theorem 4.1 of arXiv:0704.068