Related papers: A Self-Organized Critical Universe
Recently (arXiv:0910.2870), we have derived a fluctuation theorem for systems in thermodynamic equilibrium compatible with anomalous response functions, e.g. the existence of states with \textit{negative heat capacities} $C<0$. In this…
Critical phenomena near continuous phase transitions are typically observed on the scale of wavelengths of visible light[1]. Here we report similar phenomena for atmospheric precipitation on scales of tens of kilometers. Our observations…
We report a similarity of fluctuations in equilibrium critical phenomena and non-equilibrium systems, which is based on the concept of natural time. The world-wide seismicity as well as that of San Andreas fault system and Japan are…
We examine the fractal structure of the physical universe from the large scale to the smallest scale, including the phenomenon of fractal scaling. This is explained in terms of a stochastic underpinning for the laws of physics. A picture in…
Activated Random Walk is a particle system displaying Self-Organized Criticality, in that the dynamics spontaneously drive the system to a critical state. How universal is this critical state? We state many interlocking conjectures aimed at…
A celebrated and controversial hypothesis conjectures that some biological systems --parts, aspects, or groups of them-- may extract important functional benefits from operating at the edge of instability, halfway between order and…
The possibility that the universe may have a fundamental and positive cosmological constant has motivated an interesting cosmological model, in which initially the universe is in a cosmological constant sea, then the local quantum…
Dynamical systems in nature such as fluid flows, heart beat patterns, rainfall variability, stock market price fluctuations, etc. exhibit selfsimilar fractal fluctuations on all scales in space and time. Power spectral analyses of fractal…
The interstellar medium is structured as a hierachy of gas clouds, that looks self-similar over 6 orders of magnitude in scales and 9 in masses. This is one of the more extended fractal in the Universe. At even larger scales, the ensemble…
Using the Bak-Sneppen model of biological evolution as our paradigm, we investigate in which cases noise can be substituted with a deterministic signal without destroying Self-Organized Criticality (SOC). If the deterministic signal is…
Cognitive function requires the coordination of neural activity across many scales, from neurons and circuits to large-scale networks. As such, it is unlikely that an explanatory framework focused upon any single scale will yield a…
Self-organized criticality (SOC) refers to the ability of complex systems to evolve towards a 2nd-order phase transition at which interactions between system components lead to scale-invariant events beneficial for system performance. For…
All inhabitants of this universe, from galaxies to people, are finite. Yet the universe itself is often assumed to be infinite. If instead the universe is topologically finite, then light and matter can take chaotic paths around the compact…
According to empirical observations, some pattern formation phenomena in driven many-particle systems are more pronounced in the presence of a certain noise level. We investigate this phenomenon of fluctuation-driven ordering with a…
Observationally, the universe appears virtually critical. Yet, there is no simple explanation for this state. In this article we advance and explore the premise that the dynamics of the universe always seeks equilibrium conditions.…
Positively-curved, oscillatory universes are studied within the context of Loop Quantum Cosmology subject to a consistent semi-classical treatment. The semi-classical effects are reformulated in terms of an effective phantom fluid with a…
We have investigated the essential ingredients allowing a system to show Self Organized Criticality (SOC) in its collective behavior. Using the Bak-Sneppen model of biological evolution as our paradigm, we show that the random microscopic…
An oscillating universe model is discussed, in which the singularity of the initial state of the universe is avoided by postulating an upper limit on spacetime curvature. This also results in the devising of the simplest possible structure…
The origin of self-organized criticality in a model without conservation law (Olami, Feder, and Christensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 68}, 1244 (1992)) is studied. The homogeneous system with periodic boundary condition is found to be periodic…
Atmospheric flows, an example of turbulent fluid flows, exhibit fractal fluctuations of all space-time scales ranging from turbulence scale of mm -sec to climate scales of thousands of kilometers - years and may be visualized as a nested…