Abstract (eng)
Critical phenomena within equilibrium thermodynamics are quite well understood and their theory makes precise predictions on scaling behaviours near the critical point. Self-organized criticality, a term coined by Per Bak, was introduced as an extension of this concept to explain the emergence of power laws in driven systems. The Oslo sandpile model (Oslo model), a model for a 1+1 dimensional sandpile, for instance shows power law distributions in the frequency of avalanche sizes and was extensively studied. While there has been some success, the approach still lacks generality and the power to produce exact results. Recently another route to out-of-equilibrium systems, namely the Driven Sample Space Reducing Process (SSR), was proposed. The aim of my thesis is to show that SSR processes are at the heart of sandpile dynamics as demonstrated with the Oslo model.