PHASE TRANSITION IN A STOCHASTIC FOREST FIRE MODEL AND EFFECTS OF THE DEFINITION OF NEIGHBORHOOD
We present results on a stochastic forest fire model, where the influence of the neighbor trees is treated in a more realistic way than usual and the definition of neighborhood can be tuned by an additional parameter. This model exhibits a surprisingly sharp phase transition which can be shifted by redefinition of neighborhood. The results can also be interpreted in terms of disease-spreading and are quite unsettling from the epidemiologist's point of view, since variation of one crucial parameter only by a few percent can results in the change from endemic to epidemic behavior.
phase transition forest fire cellular automata disease spreading