WHAT IS a sandpile：（什么是沙堆）.pdfVIP

WHAT IS a sandpile? Lionel Levine and James Propp An abelian sandpile is a collection of indistin- To any finite connected graph G we can asso- guishable chips distributed among the vertices of ciate an abelian group K (G), called the sandpile a graph. More precisely, it is a function from group. This group is an isomorphism invariant of the vertices to the nonnegative integers, indicat- the graph and reflects certain combinatorial in- ing how many chips are at each vertex. A ver- formation about the graph. To define the group, tex is called unstable if it has at least as many we single out one vertex of G as the sink and chips as its degree, and an unstable vertex can ignore chips that fall into the sink. The opera- topple by sending one chip to each neighboring tion of addition followed by stabilization gives the vertex. Note that toppling one vertex may cause set M of all stable sandpiles on G the structure of neighboring vertices to become unstable. If the a commutative monoid. An ideal of M is a sub- graph is connected and infinite, and the number set J ⊂ M satisfying σJ ⊂ J for all σ ∈ M . The of chips is finite, then all vertices become sta- sandpile group K (G) is the minimal ideal of M ble after finitely many topplings. An easy lemma (i.e., the intersection of all ideals). The minimal says that the final stable configuration is inde- ideal of a finite commutative monoid is always pendent of the order of topplings (this is the rea- a group. (We encourage readers unfamiliar with son for calling sandpiles “abelian”). For instance, this remarkable fact to prove it for themselves.) start with a large pile of chips at the origin of the