Expansion and Contraction of Avalanches in 2D Abelian Sandpile
  We present a detailed analysis of large scale simulations of avalanches in the 2D Abelian sandpile model. We compare statistical properties of two different decompositions of avalanches into clusters of topplings and waves of topplings. Auxiliary critical exponents are introduced and the existence of the exponent governing the contraction of avalanches claimed in our previous work [Priezzhev et al, PRL 76,2093 (1996)] is confirmed. We also give more elaborated argumentation for the exact values of the exponents characterizing the statistics of waves. 
D.V.Ktitarev and V.B.Priezzhev