Fractality of Magnetospheric Dynamics: A Diffusion Entropy Approach

Sumesh Gopinath; Prince P.R.

Abstract

There are several self-organization processes in physics such as second-order phase transitions and associated scale-invariant phenomena, structure formation in thermodynamic systems away from equilibrium, self-organization of solitons into vortices in magnetized plasma etc. Space plasmas often display very complex behavior which includes multiscale dynamics, spatio-temporal chaos and self-organized criticality. The study of self-organization in magnetospheric plasma and its relation with instabilities is a subject at the forefront of space research and in particular, having relevance in the analysis of magnetospheric dynamics. The forced self-organized criticality concept was mostly motivated by the physics of magnetospheric substorms, which seems to require a continuous loading process in order to drive it into a critical or near-critical state. Low frequency stochastic fluctuations of the geomagnetic AE index with a spectrum have been interpreted in terms of a SOC system. We analyze in detail the multifractality of the auroral indices such as AE, AL and AU which may give an insight into the existence of self-organization in the magnetotail with underlying complex multifractal accumulation/dissipation dynamics in the plasma sheet. Keywords: Diffusion entropy, fractal, magnetosphereCite this ArticleSumesh Gopinath, Prince PR. Fractality of Magnetospheric Dynamics: A Diffusion Entropy Approach. Research & Reviews: Journal of Physics. 2018; 7(2): 44–53p