Apparent Fractality Emerging from Models of Random Distributions

Small-angle scattering (SAS) of X-rays, neutrons or light from ensembles of randomly oriented and placed deterministic fractal structures are studied theoretically. In the standard analysis, a very few parameters can be determined from SAS data: the fractal dimension, and the lower and upper limits of the fractal range. The self-similarity of deterministic structures allows one to obtain additional characteristics of their spatial structures. The paper considers models which ...

A method is proposed for generating compact fractal disordered media, by generalizing the random midpoint displacement algorithm. The obtained structures are invasive stochastic fractals, with the Hurst exponent varying as a continuous parameter, as opposed to lacunar deterministic fractals, such as the Menger sponge. By employing the Detrending Moving Average algorithm [Phys. Rev. E 76, 056703 (2007)], the Hurst exponent of the generated structure can be subsequently checked...

Fractal/non-fractal morphological transitions allow for the systematic study of the physics behind fractal morphogenesis in nature. In these systems, the fractal dimension is considered a non-thermal order parameter, commonly and equivalently computed from the scaling of the two-point radial- or angular-density correlations. However, these two quantities lead to discrepancies during the analysis of basic systems, such as in the diffusion-limited aggregation fractal. Hence, th...

A formalism is presented for analytically obtaining the probability density function, (P_{n}(s)), for the random distance (s) between two random points in an (n)-dimensional spherical object of radius (R). Our formalism allows (P_{n}(s)) to be calculated for a spherical (n)-ball having an arbitrary volume density, and reproduces the well-known results for the case of uniform density. The results find applications in stochastic geometry, computational science, molecular biolog...

We present the first study of disordered jammed hard-sphere packings in four-, five- and six-dimensional Euclidean spaces. Using a collision-driven packing generation algorithm, we obtain the first estimates for the packing fractions of the maximally random jammed (MRJ) states for space dimensions $d=4$, 5 and 6 to be $\phi_{MRJ} \simeq 0.46$, 0.31 and 0.20, respectively. To a good approximation, the MRJ density obeys the scaling form $\phi_{MRJ}= c_1/2^d+(c_2 d)/2^d$, where ...

Various methods have been developed independently to study the multifractality of measures in many different contexts. Although they all convey the same intuitive idea of giving a "dimension" to sets where a quantity scales similarly within a space, they are not necessarily equivalent on a more rigorous level. This review article aims at unifying the multifractal methodology by presenting the multifractal theoretical framework and principal practical methods, namely the momen...

It has recently been observed that a stochastic (infinite degree of freedom) time series with a $1/f^\alpha$ power spectrum can exhibit a finite correlation dimension, even for arbitrarily large data sets. [A.R. Osborne and A.~Provenzale, {\sl Physica D} {\bf 35}, 357 (1989).] I will discuss the relevance of this observation to the practical estimation of dimension from a time series, and in particular I will argue that a good dimension algorithm need not be trapped by this a...

Data series generated by complex systems exhibit fluctuations on many time scales and/or broad distributions of the values. In both equilibrium and non-equilibrium situations, the natural fluctuations are often found to follow a scaling relation over several orders of magnitude, allowing for a characterisation of the data and the generating complex system by fractal (or multifractal) scaling exponents. In addition, fractal and multifractal approaches can be used for modelling...

We consider, computationally and experimentally, the scaling properties of force networks in the systems of circular particles exposed to compression in two spatial dimensions. The simulations consider polydisperse and monodisperse particles, both frictional and frictionless, and in experiments we use monodisperse and bidisperse particles. While for some of the considered systems we observe consistent scaling exponents describing the behavior of the force networks, we find th...

This thesis focuses on characterizing the distribution of points and galaxies using multifractal analysis. In this attempt the main emphasis is on calculating the Minkowski-Bouligand fractal dimension (Dq) of the distribution of points over different scales and hence finding the scale of homogeneity of the distribution. Effects, of finite size of the sample and clustering in the distribution, on the Dq have been studied in detail. The assumption that the large scale distribut...