Absorbing phase transition in energy exchange models

We study energy exchange models with dissipation (λ) and noise (of amplitude σ) and show that in presence of a threshold these models undergo an absorbing phase transition when either dissipation or noise strength or both are varied. Using Monte Carlo simulations we find that the behaviour along the critical line, which separates the active phase from the absorbing one, belongs to directed percolation (DP) universality class. We claim that the conserved version with λ = 1 and σ = 0 also shows a DP transition; the apparent non-DP behaviour observed earlier is an artifact of undershooting in the decay of activity density starting from a random initial condition.