2003/11/13 by Maya Paczuski, David Hughes
Computer Science · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Physics and Astronomy · #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Computational Physics and Python Applications #Earthquake Detection and Analysis #astro-ph #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physa.2004.04.073
published as Physica A342 (2004) 158-163 · Submitted to proceedings for the Latin American Workshop on Nonlinear Phenomena, Salvador, Brazil (2003)
arxiv created 2003/11/13 · openalex publication_date 2004/05/29 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The sun provides an explosive, heavenly example of self-organized criticality. Sudden bursts of intense radiation emanate from rapid rearrangements of the magnetic field network in the corona. Avalanches are triggered by loops of flux that reconnect or snap into lower energy configurations when they are overly stressed. Our recent analysis of observational data reveals that the loops (links) and footpoints (nodes), where they attach on the photosphere, embody a scale free network. The statistics of the avalanches and of the network structure are unified through a simple dynamical model where the avalanches and network co-generate each other into a complex, critical state. This particular example points toward a general dynamical mechanism for self-generation of complex networks.