Nonlinear analysis of magnetospheric data Part I. Geometric characteristics of the AE index time series and comparison with nonlinear surrogate data

Abstract. A long AE index time series is used as a crucial magnetospheric quantity in order to study the underlying dynainics. For this purpose we utilize methods of nonlinear and chaotic analysis of time series. Two basic components of this analysis are the reconstruction of the experimental tiine series state space trajectory of the underlying process and the statistical testing of an null hypothesis. The null hypothesis against which the experimental time series are tested is that the observed AE index signal is generated by a linear stochastic signal possibly perturbed by a static nonlinear distortion. As dis ' ' ating statistics we use geometrical characteristics of the reconstructed state space (Part I, which is the work of this paper) and dynamical characteristics (Part II, which is the work a separate paper), and "nonlinear" surrogate data, generated by two different techniques which can mimic the original (AE index) signal. lie null hypothesis is tested for geometrical characteristics which are the dimension of the reconstructed trajectory and some new geometrical parameters introduced in this work for the efficient discrimination between the nonlinear stochastic surrogate data and the AE index. Finally, the estimated geometric characteristics of the magnetospheric AE index present new evidence about the nonlinear and low dimensional character of the underlying magnetospheric dynamics for the AE index.