Tight Bounds for Sandpile Transience on the Two-Dimensional Grid up to Polylogarithmic Factors.

We use techniques from the theory of electrical networks to give tight bounds for the transience class of the Abelian sandpile model on the two-dimensional grid up to polylogarithmic factors. The Abelian sandpile model is a discrete process on graphs that is intimately related to the phenomenon of self-organized criticality. In this process vertices receive grains of sand, and once the number of grains exceeds their degree, they topple by sending grains to their neighbors. The transience class of a model is the maximum number of grains that can be added to the system before it necessarily reaches a recurrent state. Through a more refined and global analysis of electrical potentials and random walks, we give an upper bound of $O(n^4log^4{n})$ and a lower bound of $Omega(n^4)$ for the transience class of the $n times n$ grid. Our methods naturally extend to $n^d$-sized $d$-dimensional grids to give an upper bound of $O(n^{3d - 2}log^{d+2}{n})$ and a lower bound of $Omega(n^{3d -2})$.