Information Theory Approach to Evaluate the Geomagnetic and Ionospheric Response to Solar Wind Parameters

The importance of space weather and understanding onset o geomagnetic storms is increasing day by day as the space missions increase. It is known from the ground-based and space-borne observations that a geomagnetic storm is a temporary disturbance of earth’s magnetosphere caused by a solar wind and/or solar eruptions. Geomagnetic storms are more disruptive now than in the past because of our greater dependence on technical systems that can be affected by electric currents and energetic particles high in the Earth's magnetosphere. It is known that number of phenomena occurs during the space weather events; and there are many un-solved questions like solar wind coupling with magnetosphere and ionosphere, relationship between geomagnetic storms & sub-storms etc.

To evaluate contribution of various interplanetary parameters that have major role in the geomagnetic storm/geomagnetic variations, the information theory approach is used. In information theory, the measure of uncertainty or randomness of a signal can be quantified by using Shannon entropy or entropy for short. And Transfer entropy is capable of quantifying the directional flow of information between two signals. Thus the Transfer entropy is capable of distinguishing effectively driving and responding signals.

In this study, we use Transfer entropy function on Solar wind parameters and ground magnetic data to derive the drivers and relations between them, and also study their contributed effect on ionospheric TEC. In this presentation, we will evaluate and present the results obtained, and discuss about the driving forces on the geomagnetic field disturbances.