Abelian sandpiles and algebraic models

Abstract

Motivated by the coincidence of topological entropies the connection between abelian sandpiles and harmonic models was established by K. Schmidt and E. Verbitskiy (2009). The dissipative sandpile models were shown to be symbolic representations of algebraic $Z^d$-actions of the harmonic models. Both models are determined by so-called simple sandpile polynomials. We extend this result to arbitrary sandpile polynomials. Moreover, we show that any sandpile model determined by a factor of a sandpile polynomial acts as an equal entropy cover of the corresponding algebraic model. For a special class of factors these covers are shown to be symbolic representations.