Open AccessUnderstanding Solar Wind and Magnetospheric Intermittent Turbulence: Turbulence and Multifractals in Geophysics and Space; Brussels, Belgium, 9–11 June 2010
Author(s) -
Echim Marius,
Chang Tom,
Lamy Hervé
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/2010eo490007
Subject(s) - intermittency , turbulence , magnetohydrodynamic turbulence , fractal , physics , fractal dimension , magnetohydrodynamics , solar wind , magnetohydrodynamic drive , statistical physics , space (punctuation) , mandelbrot set , multifractal system , scale (ratio) , plasma , mathematics , meteorology , mathematical analysis , quantum mechanics , linguistics , philosophy
Space plasmas exhibit intermittent turbulent fluctuations, i.e., randomly alternating quietness and bursts. Fractals (discussed by Benoît Mandelbrot in 1967) describe self‐similar, irregular geometrical objects with fractional dimension. Self‐similarity manifests as the recurrence of the same topology at all scales. Multifractals are a generalization of fractals and describe with geometric analogs dynamical processes whose self‐similarity depends on scale. Intermittency is one possible key to understanding the energy transfer from large (magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)) scales to much smaller, kinetic scales.