2025/12/19 by Duplat, K., Varas, G., Ramos, O.
#Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn) #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2512.17615
We analyze regional earthquake energy statistics from the Southern California and Japan seismic catalogs and find scale-invariant energy distributions characterized by an exponent τ≃ 1.67. To quantify how closely scale-invariant dynamics with different exponent values resemble real earthquakes, we generate synthetic energy distributions over a wide range of τ under conditions of constant activity. Earthquake-like behavior, in a broad sense, is obtained for 1.5 \leqslant τ< 2.0. When energy variations are further restricted to be within a factor of ten relative to real earthquakes, the admissible range narrows to 1.58 \leqslant τ\leqslant 1.76. We identify the physical mechanisms governing the dynamics in the different regimes: fault dynamics characterized by a balance between slow energy accumulation and release through scale-free events in the earthquake-like regime; externally supplied energy relative to a slowly driven fault for τ< 1.5; and dominance of small events in the energy budget for τ> 2