General mechanism for the 1/f noise.

Yadav, Avinash Chand; Ramaswamy, Ramakrishna; Dhar, Deepak · Phys Rev E · 2017

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We consider the response of a memoryless nonlinear device that acts instantaneously, converting an input signal ξ(t) into an output η(t) at the same time t. For input Gaussian noise with power-spectrum 1/f^{α}, the nonlinearity can modify the spectral index of the output to give a spectrum that varies as 1/f^{α^{'}} with α^{'}≠α. We show that the value of α^{'} depends on the nonlinear transformation and can be tuned continuously. This provides a general mechanism for the ubiquitous 1/f noise found in nature.