P I Hurtado et al J. Stat. Mech. (2006) P02004 doi:10.1088/1742-5468/2006/02/P02004
P I Hurtado1, J Marro and P L Garrido
Show affiliationsWe report on the computer study of a lattice system that relaxes from a metastable state. Under appropriate nonequilibrium randomness, relaxation occurs by avalanches, i.e., the model evolution is discontinuous and displays many scales in a way that closely resembles the relaxation in a large number of complex systems in nature. Such apparent scale invariance simply results in the model from summing over many exponential relaxations, each with a scale which is determined by the curvature of the domain wall at which the avalanche originates. The claim that scale invariance in a nonequilibrium setting is to be associated with criticality is therefore not supported. Some hints that may help in checking this experimentally are discussed.
05.70.Ln Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics
05.65.+b Self-organized systems
05.50.+q Lattice theory and statistics (Ising, Potts, etc.)
82C41 Dynamics of random walks, random surfaces, lattice animals, etc. (See also 60G50)
82C20 Dynamic lattice systems (kinetic Ising, etc.) and systems on graphs
82C35 Irreversible thermodynamics, including Onsager-Machlup theory
82C05 Classical dynamic and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics (general)
Issue 02 (February 2006)
Received 12 November 2004, accepted for publication 23 January 2006
Published 9 February 2006
P I Hurtado et al J. Stat. Mech. (2006) P02004
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