Self Organized Criticality in a two dimensional Cellular Automaton model of a magnetic flux tube with background flow

TL;DR

This paper models a two-dimensional magnetic flux tube with background flow using cellular automata to demonstrate the emergence of Self Organized Criticality, with implications for understanding Gamma Ray Bursts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cellular automaton model for flux tubes with flow, showing how Self Organized Criticality arises and relates to astrophysical phenomena.

Findings

The system reaches a Self Organized Critical state.

Energy release events follow power-law distributions.

Model reproduces features of Gamma Ray Burst light curves.

Abstract

We investigate the transition to Self Organized Criticality in a two-dimensional model of a flux tube with a background flow. The magnetic induction equation, represented by a partial differential equation with a stochastic source term, is discretized and implemented on a two dimensional cellular automaton. The energy released by the automaton during one relaxation event is the magnetic energy. As a result of the simulations we obtain the time evolution of the energy release, of the system control parameter, of the event lifetime distribution and of the event size distribution, respectively, and we establish that a Self Organized Critical state is indeed reached by the system. Moreover, energetic initial impulses in the magnetohydrodynamic flow can lead to one dimensional signatures in the magnetic two dimensional system, once the Self Organized Critical regime is established. The applications of the model for the study of Gamma Ray Bursts is briefly considered, and it is shown that some astrophysical parameters of the bursts, like the light curves, the maximum released energy, and the number of peaks in the light curve can be reproduced and explained, at least on a qualitative level, by working in a framework in which the systems settles in a Self Organized Critical state via magnetic reconnection processes in the magnetized Gamma Ray Burst fireball.