Tropical curves in sandpile models

Publication date 22 February 2015

Games on graphs (graph-theoretic aspects) (05C57) Non-Archimedean dynamical systems (11S82) Applications of tropical geometry (14T90) Discrete analytic functions (30G25) Harmonic, subharmonic, superharmonic functions in two dimensions (31A05) Harmonic, subharmonic, superharmonic functions on other spaces (31C05) Dynamical aspects of cellular automata (37B15) Combinatorial dynamics (types of periodic orbits) (37E15) Dynamical systems on Berkovich spaces (37P50) Discrete operational calculus (44A55) Discrete approximations in optimal control (49M25) Cellular automata (computational aspects) (68Q80) One- and multidimensional scaling in the social and behavioral sciences (91C15)

Abstract: A sandpile is a cellular automata on a graph which evolves by the following toppling rule: if the number of grains at a vertex is at least its valency, then this vertex sends one grain to each of its neighbours. In the study of pattern formation in sandpiles on large subgraphs of the standard checkered plane, S. Caracciolo, G. Paoletti, and A. Sportiello experimentally observed that the result of the relaxation of a small perturbation of the maximal stable state contains a clearly visible thin balanced graph in its deviation set. Such graphs are known as tropical curves. In this paper we rigorously formulate (taking a certain scaling limit) this fact and prove it. We rely on the theory of tropical analytic series, which describes the global features of the sandpile dynamic, and on the theory of smoothings of discrete superharmonic functions, which handles local questions.

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