249 research outputs found
25 Years of Self-Organized Criticality: Solar and Astrophysics
Shortly after the seminal paper {\sl "Self-Organized Criticality: An
explanation of 1/f noise"} by Bak, Tang, and Wiesenfeld (1987), the idea has
been applied to solar physics, in {\sl "Avalanches and the Distribution of
Solar Flares"} by Lu and Hamilton (1991). In the following years, an inspiring
cross-fertilization from complexity theory to solar and astrophysics took
place, where the SOC concept was initially applied to solar flares, stellar
flares, and magnetospheric substorms, and later extended to the radiation belt,
the heliosphere, lunar craters, the asteroid belt, the Saturn ring, pulsar
glitches, soft X-ray repeaters, blazars, black-hole objects, cosmic rays, and
boson clouds. The application of SOC concepts has been performed by numerical
cellular automaton simulations, by analytical calculations of statistical
(powerlaw-like) distributions based on physical scaling laws, and by
observational tests of theoretically predicted size distributions and waiting
time distributions. Attempts have been undertaken to import physical models
into the numerical SOC toy models, such as the discretization of
magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) processes. The novel applications stimulated also
vigorous debates about the discrimination between SOC models, SOC-like, and
non-SOC processes, such as phase transitions, turbulence, random-walk
diffusion, percolation, branching processes, network theory, chaos theory,
fractality, multi-scale, and other complexity phenomena. We review SOC studies
from the last 25 years and highlight new trends, open questions, and future
challenges, as discussed during two recent ISSI workshops on this theme.Comment: 139 pages, 28 figures, Review based on ISSI workshops "Self-Organized
Criticality and Turbulence" (2012, 2013, Bern, Switzerland
Applications of Automata and Graphs: Labeling-Operators in Hilbert Space I
We show that certain representations of graphs by operators on Hilbert space
have uses in signal processing and in symbolic dynamics. Our main result is
that graphs built on automata have fractal characteristics. We make this
precise with the use of Representation Theory and of Spectral Theory of a
certain family of Hecke operators. Let G be a directed graph. We begin by
building the graph groupoid G induced by G, and representations of G. Our main
application is to the groupoids defined from automata. By assigning weights to
the edges of a fixed graph G, we give conditions for G to acquire fractal-like
properties, and hence we can have fractaloids or G-fractals. Our standing
assumption on G is that it is locally finite and connected, and our labeling of
G is determined by the "out-degrees of vertices". From our labeling, we arrive
at a family of Hecke-type operators whose spectrum is computed. As
applications, we are able to build representations by operators on Hilbert
spaces (including the Hecke operators); and we further show that automata built
on a finite alphabet generate fractaloids. Our Hecke-type operators, or
labeling operators, come from an amalgamated free probability construction, and
we compute the corresponding amalgamated free moments. We show that the free
moments are completely determined by certain scalar-valued functions.Comment: 69 page
On a conjecture of Atiyah
In this note we explain how the computation of the spectrum of the
lamplighter group from \cite{Grigorchuk-Zuk(2000)} yields a counterexample to a
strong version of the Atiyah conjectures about the range of -Betti numbers
of closed manifolds.Comment: 8 pages, A4 pape
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