Long-range connective sandpile models and its implication to seismicity evolution

Abstract

We propose a new variant of the sandpile model, the long-range connective sandpile model, by means of introducing randomly internal connections between two separated distant cells. The long-range connective sandpile model demonstrates various self-organized critical states with different scaling exponents in the power-law frequency-size distributions. We found that a sandpile with higher degree of randomly internal long-range connections is characterized by a higher value of the scaling exponent for the distribution, whereas the nearest neighbor sandpile is possessed of a lower scaling exponent. Our numerical experiments on the long-range connective sandpile models imply that higher degree of random long-range connections makes the earthquake fault system more relaxant that releases accumulated energy more easily and produces fewer catastrophic events, whereas lower degree of long-range connections possibly caused by fracture healing very likely motivates accelerating seismicity of moderate events.