Chimeric classes of universality of catastrophic cascades

Author:

I. Bonamassa, B. Gross, J. Kertész, S. Havlin

Keyword:

Condensed Matter, Disordered Systems and Neural Networks, Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn), Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)

journal:

date:

2024-01-17 00:00:00

Abstract

Cascades are self-reinforcing processes underlying the systemic risk of many natural and socio-technical systems. Understanding the universal aspects of these phenomena is a fundamental topic, yet typically bound to numerical observations in ad-hoc models and limited insights. Here, we develop a unifying approach and show that regime shifts by long-range cascades are characterized by two universality classes defined by the parity invariance of the underlying process. We provide hyperscaling arguments predicting critical exponents with mean-field and $d$-dimensional features -- hence, their term ``chimeric'' -- and show how global symmetries influence the geometry and lifetime of avalanches. Simulations encompassing classic and novel cascade models validate our predictions, revealing fundamental principles of cascade phenomena amenable to experimental validation.

PDF: Chimeric classes of universality of catastrophic cascades.pdf