Category: Physics

Summary: Mapping how the Gutenberg-Richter b-value and crossover size vary with dissipation in the Olami-Feder-Christensen earthquake model.

The Olami-Feder-Christensen model is a standard driven threshold system for earthquake-like avalanches, but its event statistics depend sensitively on the amount of dissipation. This experiment asks how the Gutenberg-Richter b-value changes across the dissipation parameter range and whether the broadest event-size distribution occurs at an interior value rather than only near the conservative limit.

The script sweeps the dissipation parameter across several lattice sizes and measures both the slope of the event-size distribution and the crossover scale where power-law behavior gives way to more periodic large events. By resolving the full curve instead of a few isolated parameter choices, it targets the geometry of the transition between SOC-like and more structured behavior.

That is valuable because the literature often samples only a small subset of dissipation values. The experiment is intended to produce a denser map of how apparent earthquake scaling changes across regimes.

Method: Repeated OFC spring-block simulations across dissipation values and lattice sizes, followed by fits of event-size distributions and crossover scales.

What is measured: Gutenberg-Richter b-value, crossover size, dependence on dissipation and system size, and the broadness of the event-size distribution.