Annealed and quenched disorder in sand-pile models with local violation of conservation

Saman Moghimi-Araghi and Mahmoud Sebtosheikh

Phys. Rev. E 92, 022116 – Published 10 August 2015

Abstract

In this paper we consider the Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld (BTW) sand-pile model with local violation of conservation through annealed and quenched disorder. We have observed that the probability distribution functions of avalanches have two distinct exponents, one of which is associated with the usual BTW model and another one which we propose to belong to a new fixed point; that is, a crossover from the original BTW fixed point to a new fixed point is observed. Through field theoretic calculations, we show that such a perturbation is relevant and takes the system to a new fixed point.