Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-23-2018

Keywords

Astrophysics, Solar wind

Abstract

It is well known that the magnetospheric response to the solar wind is nonlinear. Information theoretical tools such as mutual information, transfer entropy, and cumulant based analysis are able to characterize the nonlinearities in the system. Using cumulant based cost, we show that nonlinear significance of D st peaks at 3–12 hours lags that can be attributed to VBs which also exhibit similar behavior. However, the nonlinear significance that peaks at lags 25, 50, and 90 hours can be attributed to internal dynamics, which may be related to the relaxation of the ring current. These peaks are absent in the linear and nonlinear self-significance of VBs . Our analysis with mutual information and transfer entropy show that both methods can establish that there are a strong correlation and transfer of information from V sw to D st at a time scale that is consistent with that obtained from the cumulant based analysis. However, mutual information also shows that there is a strong correlation in the backward direction, from D st to V sw , which is counterintuitive. In contrast, transfer entropy shows that there is no or little transfer of information from D st to V sw , as expected because it is the solar wind that drives the magnetosphere, not the other way around. Our case study demonstrates that these information theoretical tools are quite useful for space physics studies because these tools can uncover nonlinear dynamics that cannot be seen with the traditional analyses and models that assume linear relationships.

Journal Title

Annales Geophysicae

First Page

1

Last Page

19

DOI

10.5194/angeo-2018-7

First Department

Engineering

Acknowledgements

Retrieved May 23, 2018, from https://www.ann-geophys-discuss.net/angeo-2018-7/angeo-2018-7.pdf

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