Fractals and Percolation
Edith Perrier, IRD France,
Visiting scientist at UCT,
Applied Maths Dept., room 417.1, Ext. 3205,
E-mail edith@[Link]
Web site where to download previous lectures [Link] (or [Link] if links
included) [Link]
Lecture summary
Introduction from [Link]
Applied examples (bond and site percolation)
Percolation thresholds
Self-similarity and fractal structures at the
phase transition
Universality and critical exponents for flux
processes
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 2
Bond and site percolation
Wanted woman example : Policemen trying to catch Ariane in a big
town by putting randomly roadblocks at some streets or at some
crossroads… (Gouyet, Physics and fractal structures, 1992)
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 3
Applied examples (site percolation)
Black sites White sites dynamical
(micro (micro process
level) level)) (macro
level)
Blocked Open Ariane’s
crossroads crossroads path
Conductor insulator Electrical
fluxes
void solid Fluid flow
in porous
media
Burning glade Forest fire
tree diffusion
ill people Not-ill Epidemics
diffusion
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 4
Applied examples (bond percolation)
Open links Closed dynamical
(micro links process
level) (micro (macro
level)) level)
Open Closed Ariane’s
streets streets path
Water-filled Air-filled Flow in un-
pores pores saturated
(fluid1) (fluid2) porous
media
Connected Non Liquid/gel
polymers connected transitions
chains
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 5
Percolation threshold
Simulation over a larger and larger lattice of
size Ld,let us denote pathL the probability that
any connecting path from side to another one
occurs
path 1 if p pc
path 0 if p pc
0 ptransition 1 lim ptransition pc
L
Existence of a critical value pc : the
percolation threshold
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 6
Basic results (percolation thresholds)
Table
lattice site bond
honeycomb 0.696 2 0.652 71*
square 0.592 75 0.500 00*
triangular 0.500 00* 0.347 29*
degree : 6
diamond 0.428 0.388
Simple cubic 0.311 7 0.249 2
BCC 0.245 0.178 5
FCC 0.198 0.119
Computer evaluations or
(*) mathematical calculations
degree : 6
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 7
Fractal patterns at the phase transition
Fractal structures : self-similarity of clusters
Assumption: Same pattern at any scale and
renormalisation theory
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 8
Mathematical calculation of some
percolation thresholds
(z=3)
Example 1: Bethe lattices or Cayley trees
pc=1/(z-1)
Example 2: site triangular lattice
Example 3 (Exercice) : bond square lattice
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 9
Example: sites on a triangular
network
Considering a similar network
and similar probabilities for
each scale at the phase
transition, …. Let us upscale
using the so-called
renormalization theory
3 2
P p 3 p (1 p )
Let us solve P=p which leads to p=0, p=1 or p=0.5
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 10
Exercice: bonds on a squared lattice
P p 4 p (1 p ) 3 p 1 p
4 3 2 2
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 11
Universal exponents depending only on
the Euclidean dimension, not on the
microscopic geometry or local laws
Probabitity for a site to P ( p ) p pc
belong to the infinite
cluster
K p pc
Macrosopic
conductivity on the
connected cluster
M r p pc
D D
Mass M of the infinite
cluster covered by a
sphere of radius R Dd
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 12
Lecture series
Lecture 1. March. 3rd. Introduction to fractal geometry . Measures
and power laws.
Lecture 2. March 5th. Definitions of non-integer dimensions and
mathematical formalisms
Lecture 3. March 10th. Iteration of functions and fractal patterns
Lecture 4. March 12th. Extensions: Self-similar and self-affine
sets . Multifractals.
Lecture 5. March 17th. Fractals / Geostatistics / Time series
analysis
Lecture 6. March 19th. Dynamical processes : Fractal and
random walks
Lecture 7. March 24th. Dynamical processes : Fractal and
Percolation
Lecture 8. March 26th. Dynamical processes : Fractal and Chaos
March 24 th, 200 Fractals and Percolation 13