A trial estimation of frictional properties, focusing on aperiodicity off Kamaishi just after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake

Motivated by the fact that temporal earthquake aperiodicity was observed off Kamaishi just after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, we performed numerical simulations of chain reactions due to the postseismic slip of large earthquakes by applying rate- and state-dependent friction laws. If the repeater is composed of single asperity, our results show that, (i) a mixture of partial and whole rupturing of a single asperity can explain some of the observed variability in timing and size of the repeating earthquakes off Kamaishi; (ii) the partial rupturing can be reproduced with moderate frictional instability with the aging-law and not the slip or Nagata laws; (iii) the perturbation of the activated earthquake hypocenters observed mostly in the ESE-WNW direction may reflect the fact that the large postseismic slip of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake propagated from ESE to WNW off Kamaishi; (iv) the observed region of repeating earthquake quiescence may reflect the strong plate coupling of megathrust earthquakes.