A Heavenly Example of Scale Free Networks and Self-Organized Criticality

Abstract

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.

Submitted to proceedings for the Latin American Workshop on Nonlinear Phenomena, Salvador, Brazil (2003)

References in corpus (4)

• Statistical mechanics of complex networks
• Solar Flares as Cascades of Reconnecting Magnetic Loops
• Large Scale Structures, Symmetry, and Universality in Sandpiles
• Scale-Free Magnetic Networks: Comparing Observational Data with a Self-Organizing Model of the Coronal Field

Cited by in corpus (13)

• Analyzing and Modeling Real-World Phenomena with Complex Networks: A Survey of Applications
• Inter-occurrence Times in the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld Sandpile Model: A Comparison with the Turbulent Statistics of Solar Flares
• Intensity Thresholds and the Statistics of the Temporal Occurrence of Solar Flares
• Self-organization toward criticality by synaptic plasticity
• Probing the topological properties of complex networks modeling short written texts
• Networks of Recurrent Events, a Theory of Records, and an Application to Finding Causal Signatures in Seismicity
• Brain, Music and non-Poisson Renewal Processes
• Interplay between network structure and self-organized criticality
• Cluster formation in complex multi-scale systems
• Activity Dependent Branching Ratios in Stocks, Solar X-ray Flux, and the Bak-Tang-Wiesenfeld Sandpile Model
• Correlated flares in models of a magnetized "canopy"
• Dynamics and Development of the International System: A Complexity Science Perspective
• Critical behavior of a stochastic anisotropic Bak-Sneppen model