Local rigidity in sandpile models

We address the problem of the role of the concept of local rigidity in the family of sandpile systems. We define rigidity as the ratio between the critical energy and the amplitude of the external perturbation and we show, in the framework of the dynamically driven renormalization group, that any finite value of the rigidity in a generalized sandpile model renormalizes to an infinite value at the fixed point, i.e., on a large scale. The fixed-point value of the rigidity allows then for a nonambiguous distinction between sandpilelike systems and diffusive systems. Numerical simulations support our analytical results. © 2002 The American Physical Society.