Li-Yorke Chaos for Composition Operators on LpL^p-Spaces

Li-Yorke chaos is a popular and well-studied notion of chaos. Several simple and useful characterizations of this notion of chaos in the setting of linear dynamics were obtained recently. In this note we show that even simpler and more useful characterizations of Li-Yorke chaos can be given in the special setting of composition operators on $L^p$ spaces. As a consequence we obtain a simple characterization of weighted shifts which are Li-Yorke chaotic. We give numerous examples to show that our results are sharp

Singular diffusion and criticality in a confined sandpile

We investigate the behavior of a two-state sandpile model subjected to a confining potential in one and two dimensions. From the microdynamical description of this simple model with its intrinsic exclusion mechanism, it is possible to derive a continuum nonlinear diffusion equation that displays singularities in both the diffusion and drift terms. The stationary-state solutions of this equation, which maximizes the Fermi-Dirac entropy, are in perfect agreement with the spatial profiles of time-averaged occupancy obtained from model numerical simulations in one as well as in two dimensions. Surprisingly, our results also show that, regardless of dimensionality, the presence of a confining potential can lead to the emergence of typical attributes of critical behavior in the two-state sandpile model, namely, a power-law tail in the distribution of avalanche sizes.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure