Visibility graph analysis of solar wind velocity

TL;DR

This study applies visibility graph analysis to solar wind velocity data from ACE and Helios spacecraft, revealing how the irreversibility of solar wind fluctuations varies with solar activity cycles.

Contribution

It introduces a graph-based method to quantify time irreversibility in solar wind velocity data across different solar cycle phases.

Findings

Irreversibility parameter varies with solar cycle phases.

Similar irreversibility behavior observed at 0.3 AU and 1 AU.

Method successfully distinguishes dynamical states of solar wind.

Abstract

We analyze in situ measurements of solar wind velocity obtained by Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft and Helios spacecraft during the years 1998-2012 and 1975-1983 respectively. The data belong to mainly solar cycle 23 (1996-2008) and solar cycle 21 (1976-1986) respectively. We use Directed Horizontal Visibility graph (DHVg) algorithm and estimate a graph functional, namely, the degree distance (D) as the Kullback-Leibler divergence (KLD) argument to understand time irreversibility of solar wind time series. We estimate this degree distance irreversibility parameter for these time series at different phases of solar activity cycle. Irreversibility parameter is first established for known dynamical data and then applied for solar wind velocity time series. It is observed that irreversibility in solar wind velocity fluctuations show similar behaviour at 0.3 AU (Helios data) and 1 AU (ACE data). Moreover it changes over the different phases of solar activity cycle.