A study of non-extensivity in the Earth’s magnetosphere

• Published in: The European physical journal. ST, Special topics Vol. 174; no. 1; pp. 219 - 225
• Main Authors: Balasis, G., Eftaxias, K.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer-Verlag 01.07.2009
• Subjects: Atomic; Classical and Continuum Physics; Condensed Matter Physics; Materials Science; Measurement Science and Instrumentation; Molecular; Optical and Plasma Physics; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Magnetic Storm; European Physical Journal Special Topic; Earthquake Occurrence; Wavelet Power Spectrum; Entropic Index
• ISSN: 1951-6355; 1951-6401
• DOI: 10.1140/epjst/e2009-01102-y

Magnetic storms are undoubtedly among the most important phenomena in space physics and also a central subject of space weather. The non-extensive Tsallis entropy has been recently introduced, as an effective complexity measure for the analysis of the geomagnetic activity D st index. Tsallis entropy has been shown to sensitively detect the complexity dissimilarity between pre-storm activity and intense magnetic storms in the Earth’s magnetosphere. Here, we show that the D st time series obey a modified form of the Gutenberg-Richter law for the case of non-extensive statistics, thus providing evidence for universality in magnetic storm and earthquake occurrence.