Criticality of the abelian sandpile in dimension 1

Abstract

We study the critical behavior of the dissipative abelian sandpile model on Z with dissipative sites at arbitrary positions (x_k). This is equivalent to studying whether the expected stopping time of a trapped random walk on Z is finite. Our main contribution is a precise description of this phase transition via three distinct regimes. Our analysis captures criticality through the asymptotic behavior of an explicit recursive sequence, revealing counterintuitive phenomena in which traps may be farther apart yet the stopping time becomes shorter.