Universality in Sandpiles, Interface Depinning, and Earthquake Models.

Recent numerical results for a model describing dispersive transport in ricepiles are explained by mapping the model to the depinning transition of an elastic interface that is dragged at one end through a random medium. The average velocity of transport vanishes with system size {ital L} as {l_angle}{ital v}{r_angle}{approximately}{ital L}{sup 2{minus}{ital D}}{approximately}{ital L}{sup {minus}0.23}, and the avalanche size distribution exponent {tau}=2{minus}1/{ital D}{approx_equal}1.55, where {ital D}{approx_equal}2.23 from interface depinning. We conjecture that the purely deterministic Burridge-Knopoff {open_quote}{open_quote}train{close_quote}{close_quote} model for earthquakes is in the same universality class. {copyright} {ital 1996 The American Physical Society.}