# References

A new conjecture extends   
the $`GM`$ law for percolation thresholds   
to dynamical situations   
Serge Galam<sup>1</sup><sup>1</sup>1e-mail: galam@ccr.jussieu.fr

Laboratoire des Milieux Désordonnés et Hétérogènes, Tour 13, Case 86,

4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France

Nicolas Vandewalle<sup>2</sup><sup>2</sup>2e-mail:vandewal@gw.unipc.ulg.ac.be

SUPRAS, Institut de Physique B5, Université de Liège,

B-4000 Liège, Belgium

Int. J. Mod. Phys. C 9 (1998) 667-671

## Abstract

The universal law for percolation thresholds proposed by Galam and Mauger ($`GM`$) is found to apply also to dynamical situations. This law depends solely on two variables, the space dimension $`d`$ and a coordinance number $`q`$. For regular lattices, $`q`$ reduces to the usual coordination number while for anisotropic lattices it is an effective coordination number. For dynamical percolation we conjecture that the law is still valid if we use the number $`q_2`$ of second nearest neighbors instead of $`q`$. This conjecture is checked for the dynamic epidemic model which considers the percolation phenomenon in a mobile disordered system. The agreement is good.

keywords: percolation threshold — epidemic model — lattice — tree

1. Introduction

Recently, a universal power law for both site and bond percolation thresholds was postulated by Galam and Mauger ($`GM`$) . The $`GM`$ formula is

$$p_c^{GM}=p_0\left[(d1)(q1)\right]^ad^b$$
(1)   
with $`d`$ being the space dimension and $`q`$ a coordinance variable. For regular lattices, $`q`$ is the lattice coordination number. The exponent $`b`$ is either equal to $`a`$ for bond percolation or to $`0`$ for site percolation. Three classes characterized by three different sets of parameters $`\{a;p_0\}`$ were found. The first class includes two-dimensional triangle, square and honeycomb lattices with $`\{a=0.3601;p_0=0.8889\}`$ for site percolation and $`\{a=0.6897;p_0=0.6558\}`$ for bond percolation. Two-dimensional Kagomé and all (hyper-)cubic lattices in $`3d6`$ constitute the second class with $`\{a=0.6160;p_0=1.2868\}`$ and $`\{a=0.9346;p_0=0.7541\}`$ for site and bond respectively. The third class corresponds to high dimensions ($`d>6`$). There, $`b=2a1`$ and $`p_0=2^{a1}`$ with $`a=0.8800`$ for site and $`a=0.3685`$ for bond percolation. For hypercubic lattices ($`q=2d`$), the asymptotic limit leading term is identical to the Cayley tree threshold. For both site and bond percolation  it is,

$$p_c=\frac{1}{z}$$
(2)   
where $`z`$ is the branching rate of the tree, i.e. $`zq1`$.

In high dimensions, it has been reported that more $`GM`$ classes should be taken into account . Extension to anisotropic and aperiodic lattices has also been also reported . The formula (1) remains valid. However to preserve its high accuracy $`q`$ should be replaced by an effective non-integer value $`q_{eff}`$ which is different from a simple arithmetic average.

In this letter, making a simple conjecture we extend the validity of the $`GM`$ formula (Eq.(1)) to dynamical situations like epidemics or contagion models. The results obtained fit well to available data.

2. Epidemic models

The epidemic model  considers the Eden growth  of a phase in a disordered medium with static impurities. In this model, a fraction $`x`$ of particles are randomly dispersed on a lattice. These particles act as hindrances for the random growth of a spreading phase. For $`x<x_c`$, the cluster is growing forever while for $`x>x_c`$ the growth of the cluster is stopped after a finite number of timesteps. This unblocked-blocked growth transition is closely related to a site percolation phenomenon since $`x_c=1p_c`$.

Recently, the dynamical epidemic model  has been introduced in order to provide a phenomenological basis for the aggregation of mesoscopic impurities along crystal growth surfaces and interfaces . In the dynamic epidemic model, the particles are mobile hindrances for the random growth of a phase. When the growth front reaches a particle, the latter is supposed to move to an empty nearest neighboring site in order to minimize its contact with the spreading phase if such a move is possible. This rule is illustrated in Figure 1. This repulsive dynamical interaction leads to an aggregation phenomenon along the growth interface and leads further to some reorganization of the mobile medium . The threshold $`p_c`$ for dynamical situations is quite different from the static medium. The formation of growth instabilities along the propagating front has been recently reported  to be the source of the organization process.

The dynamic epidemic model has been numerically studied at $`d=2`$  and $`d=3`$ . Moreover, an exact solution has been obtained on tree-like structures which are illustrated in Figure 2. The percolation thresholds for either static or dynamic epidemics are listed in Table I as well as the thresholds predicted by the $`GM`$ formula.

3. The conjecture

Let us consider first a square lattice. As described above and illustrated in Figure 1, when a particle is reached by the interface, the particle tries to move to another neighboring empty site as in avalanche processes in sandpiles. If the neighborhood of the particle is completely occupied, the particle remains static and the cluster growth is pinned there. Intuitively, one can consider that the unblocked-blocked growth transition depends at least on the occupation of sites in the front neighborhood including the $`q_2`$ second neighboring sites (neighbors of neighbors). Not to be mistaken with next nearest neigbhors. The extended neighborhood of a site is shown in Figure 3. It is worth noticing that on regular lattices

$$q_2=dq.$$
(3)   
Taking $`q_{eff}=q+q_2=12`$, as for percolation with next nearest interactions , the $`GM`$ law (Eq. (1), site first class) does not hold and does not reproduce the dynamical threshold, for instance $`p_c=0.44`$ for squares. Nevertheless, one can notice that taking $`q_{eff}=q_2=8`$ provides the value $`0.4411`$ for $`p_c`$ which is “exact” within the two digits of available data (see Table I).

Using the same substitution, the universal law  holds true also for the cubic ($`d=3`$) case for which $`q_2=18`$ and $`p_c=015`$. It yields (for site second class) $`p_c=0.1466`$ which is again “exact”. These results ground the following conjecture: Percolation properties of a dynamic epidemic process are identical to the associated static ones with substituting $`q_2`$ to $`q`$.

We are now in a position to check the above conjecture in the case of the Cayley tree for which the thresholds are known exactly. The relevant parameter is the branching rate $`z`$ instead of $`q`$. The parameter $`z`$ can be considered as the number of nearest neighboring sites $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$ towards the tree extremities. In fact, there is no distinction between directed percolation and simple percolation on a tree-like structure. The exact solution of the dynamic epidemic model on a Cayley tree  is

$$p_c=1/z^2.$$
(4)   
The number $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ of second neighboring sites towards the leaves is $`z^2`$. Thus from Eq.(2), this theoretical result corroborates the above conjecture that $`q`$ should be replaced by $`q_2`$ in the $`GM`$ universal law.

On the trees decorated with loops like those illustrated in Figure 2b and 2c the sites are non-equivalent. An effective number $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ of second sites towards the leaves can be calculated by averaging $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ on the various sites of the tree structure. Effective values of the number $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ for trees decorated with loops are given in Table I. Again, considering $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ instead of $`q`$ in Eq.(2) provides a good value for $`p_c`$ in the case of trees decorated with loops (see Table I). However, the agreement is not as good as for the square and cubic lattices. This discreapancy is to be put in parallel to the finding  that for anisotropic lattices an effective number of neigbhors should be used instead of the arithmetic average.

4. Conclusion

In this letter we have proposed a mapping of the percolation threshold for a dynamical situation to a static one by making a simple conjecture with respect to the relevant neigbhoring sites. The conjecture states that the dynamical percolation case reduces to the static percolation one considering that the percolation threshold should include the effect of the second nearest neigbhors only. This conjecture was then checked using the $`GM`$ universal law for percolation thresholds. The results are very convincing. It was also found to be satisfied in the Cayley tree case. More results on a larger lattice spectrum would allow a more definite check of our conjecture.

Acknowledgements

NV thanks the FNRS for financial support. Thanks to M.Ausloos for fruitful discussions.

| Lattice | Ref. | $`p_c`$ static | $`p_c^{GM}`$ static | $`p_c`$ dynamic | $`p_c^{GM}`$ dynamic | $`q`$ | $`q_2`$ |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| square ($`d=2`$) |  | 0.5928 | 0.5985 | 0.44 | 0.4411 | 4 | 8 |
| cubic ($`d=3`$) |  | 0.3116 | 0.3115 | 0.15 | 0.1466 | 6 | 18 |
| Tree | Ref. | $`p_c`$ static | $`1/\stackrel{~}{q}`$ | $`p_c`$ dynamic | $`1/\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ | $`\stackrel{~}{q}`$ | $`\stackrel{~}{q}_2`$ |
| Cayley tree |  | $`1/z`$ | $`1/z`$ | $`1/z^2`$ | $`1/z^2`$ | $`z`$ | $`z^2`$ |
| tree ($`\mathrm{}`$ loops) |  | 1/2 | 1/2 | 0.151 | 0.1667 | 2 | 18/3 |
| tree ($`\mathrm{}`$ loops) |  | 0.597 | 0.625 | 0.269 | 0.2778 | 8/5 | 18/5 |

Table I — The thresholds $`p_c`$ for both static and dynamic epidemic models compared to the associated $`p_c^{GM}`$ thresholds from Eq.(1). All lattices studied up to now to our knowledge are listed with pertinent references. The number of nearest neighboring sites $`q`$ as well as the second neighborhood $`q_2`$ are also given. Trees are as those shown in Figure 2.

Figure captions

Figure 1 — Illustration of one growth step of the dynamic epidemic model. The growing phase is drawn in white, the mobile particles (hindrances) are drawn in black and the empty sites are shown in grey: (a) one empty site denoted by a cross in contact with the spreading cluster is selected at random; (b) the growth takes place there and the particle touched by the new unit jumps towards a neighboring site in order to reduce its contact with the cluster.

Figure 2 — Three different trees with branching rate $`z=2`$ as discussed in this paper: (a) Cayley tree, (b) tree decorated with triangular loops, and (c) tree decorated with square loops.

Figure 3 — Nearest neighbors and second neighbors on a square lattice. The $`q_2=8`$ second neighbors which play the fundamental role in the dynamic epidemic model are denoted in grey.