1996/06/10 by M. E. J. Newman, Kim Sneppen · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #cond-mat
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.54.6226
published as Phys. Rev. E 54, 6226 (1996) · 17 pages, 4 Postscript figures, written in LaTeX using RevTeX and epsfig.sty
arxiv created 1996/06/10 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30
We present a simple model of a dynamical system driven by externally-imposed coherent noise. Although the system never becomes critical in the sense of possessing spatial correlations of arbitrarily long range, it does organize into a stationary state characterized by avalanches with a power-law size distribution. We explain the behavior of the model within a time-averaged approximation, and discuss its potential connection to the dynamics of earthquakes, the Gutenberg-Richter law, and to recent experiments on avalanches in rice piles.