Nonuniversal Critical Spreading in Two Dimensions

Continuous phase transitions are studied in a two dimensional nonequilibrium model with an infinite number of absorbing configurations. Spreading from a localized source is characterized by nonuniversal critical exponents, which vary continuously with the density phi in the surrounding region. The exponent delta changes by more than an order of magnitude, and eta changes sign. The location of the critical point also depends on phi, which has important implications for scaling. As expected on the basis of universality, the static critical behavior belongs to the directed percolation class.