Self-Organized Criticality in Astrophysics: The Statistics of Nonlinear Processes in the Universe

ISBN-13: 9783662506066 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 416 str.

Markus Aschwanden

Opis

This book addresses for the first time the subject of "Self-organized criticality" (SOC) in astrophysical systems. The book illustrates the relevance of SOC to such sciences as astrophysics, geophysics, biophysics and ecophysics.

Recenzje

From the reviews:

"The main aim of the present book is the derivation of the theoretical framework and specific physical models of SOC. ... The present work contains an extensive list of well-chosen references for further reading. The textbook is intended to be an introduction to the relatively new subject of self-organized criticality (SOC), which is suitable for students and post-docs, as well as for researchers." (Claudia-Veronika Meister, Zentralblatt MATH, Vol. 1211, 2011)

Spis treści

1 Self-Organized Criticality in the Universe.- 2 Numerical SOC Models.-  3 Statistics of Random Processes.- 4 Time Series Analysis.- 5 Time Scale Distributions.-  6 Waiting Time Distributions.-  7 Occurrence Frequency Distributions.- 8 Fractal Geometry.- 9 Scaling Laws.-  10 Physical SOC Models in Astrophysics.

Blurb

The concept of ‘self-organized criticality’ (SOC) has been applied to a variety of problems, ranging from population growth and traffic jams to earthquakes, landslides and forest fires. The technique is now being applied to a wide range of phenomena in astrophysics, such as planetary magnetospheres, solar flares, cataclysmic variable stars, accretion disks, black holes and gamma-ray bursts, and also to phenomena in galactic physics and cosmology. Self-organized Criticality in Astrophysics introduces the concept of SOC and shows that, due to its universality and ubiquity, it is a law of nature. The theoretical framework and specific physical models are described, together with a range of applications in various aspects of astrophyics. The mathematical techniques, including the statistics of random processes, time series analysis, time scale and waiting time distributions, are presented and the results are applied to specific observations of astrophysical phenomena.