HR: 17:30h
AN: H14B-07    [Abstracts]
TI: Binary 3-D Markov Chain Random Fields: Finite-size Scaling Analysis of Percolation Properties
AU: * Harter, T
EM: ThHarter@ucdavis.edu
AF: University of California, Dept. of Land, Air, and Water Resources, Davis, CA 95616-8628 United States
AB: Percolation phenomena in random media have been extensively studied in a wide variety of fields in physics, chemistry, engineering, bio-, earth-, and environmental sciences. Most work has focused on uncorrelated random fields. The critical behavior in media with short-range correlations is thought to be identical to that in uncorrelated systems. However, the percolation threshold, pc, which is 0.3116 in uncorrelated media, has been observed to vary with the correlation scale and also with the random field type. Here, we present percolation properties and finite-size scaling effects in three-dimensional binary cubic lattices represented by correlated Markov-chain random fields and compare them to those in sequential Gaussian and sequential indicator random fields. We find that the computed percolation threshold in correlated random fields is significantly lower than in the uncorrelated lattice and decreases with increasing correlation scale. The rate of decrease rapidly flattens out for correlation lengths larger than 2-3 grid-blocks. At correlation scales of 5-6 grid blocks, pc is found to be 0.126 for the Markov chain random fields and slightly higher for sequential Gaussian and indicator random fields. The universal scaling constants for mean cluster size, backbone fraction, and connectivity are found to be consistent with results on uncorrelated lattices. For numerical studies, it is critical to understand finite-size effects on the percolation and associated phase connectivity properties of lattices. We present detailed statistical results on the percolation properties in finite sized lattice and their dependence on correlation scale. We show that appropriate grid resolution and choice of simulation boundaries is critical to properly simulate correlated natural geologic systems, which may display significant finite-size effects.
DE: 1829 Groundwater hydrology
DE: 1869 Stochastic processes
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting