Fractal properties of geodynamo models

Abstract

Abstract The statistical behavior of time series of reversals (TSR) of the Geomagnetic field is studied. It is demonstrated that TSR possess the self-similarity property under time scale transformations. The authors believe that such a simple statistical property should be a consequence of the unique physical mechanism leading to the reversals, and it is not necessary to find special reasons for the explanation of the long and short time intervals between them. To test this idea, TSR were analysed which result from various models of the Geomagnetic field. Simplest models like the well-known Rikitake model do not exhibit self-similarity properties despite the fact that their TSR show statistical behavior. More realistic models with significantly larger number of degrees of freedom (e.g. Hollerbach et al., 1992) really demonstrate such self-similarity properties.