Loss of criticality in the avalanche statistics of sandpiles with dissipative sites

Antonino A. Paguirigan Jr., Christopher P. Monterola, Rene C. Batac

Abstract: Highlights•Sinks, nonconservative elements that dissipate energy, are spatially distributed in the sandpile grid.•Increased sink densities affect both driving and redistribution rules of the sandpile, resulting in small, uncorrelated avalanches.•Avalanche size distributions evolve from correlated power-laws to random exponential distributions for increasing sink densities.•For low sink densities, there is no optimal configuration that can minimize the extent of avalanches in the grid.