udo Schwarz, Arnold O. Benz, Jürgen Kurths, Annette Witt

• Using quantities of symbolic dynamics, such as mutual information, Shannon information and algorithmic complexity, we have searched for interrelations of spikes emitted simultaneously at different frequencies during the impulsive phase of a flare event. As the spikes are related to the flare energy release and are interpreted as emissions originating at different sites having different magnetic field strengths, any relation in frequency is interpretated as a relation in space. This approach is appropriate to characterize such spatio-temporal patterns, whereas the popular estimate of fractal dimensions can be applied to low-dimensional systems only. Depending on the energy release and emission processes, two types of fragmentation are possible: a scenario of global organization (spikes are emitted in a succession of similar events by the same system) or a scenario of local organization (many systems triggered by an initial event). Mutual information which is a generalization of correlation indicates a relation in frequency beyond theUsing quantities of symbolic dynamics, such as mutual information, Shannon information and algorithmic complexity, we have searched for interrelations of spikes emitted simultaneously at different frequencies during the impulsive phase of a flare event. As the spikes are related to the flare energy release and are interpreted as emissions originating at different sites having different magnetic field strengths, any relation in frequency is interpretated as a relation in space. This approach is appropriate to characterize such spatio-temporal patterns, whereas the popular estimate of fractal dimensions can be applied to low-dimensional systems only. Depending on the energy release and emission processes, two types of fragmentation are possible: a scenario of global organization (spikes are emitted in a succession of similar events by the same system) or a scenario of local organization (many systems triggered by an initial event). Mutual information which is a generalization of correlation indicates a relation in frequency beyond the bandwidth of individual spikes. The scans in the spectrograms with large mutual information also show a low level of Shannon information and algorithmic complexity, indicating that the simultaneous appearance of spikes at other frequencies is not a completely stochastic phenomenon (white noise). It may be caused by a nonlinear deterministic system or by a Markov process. By means of mutual information we find a memory over frequency intervals up to 60 MHz. Shannon information and algorithmic complexity concern the mbox{whole} frequency region, i.e. the global source region. A global organization is also apparent in quasi-periodic changes of the Shannon information and algorithmic complexity in the range of 2 - 8 seconds. The finding is compatible with a scenario of local organization in which the information of one event spreads spatially and triggers further events at different places. The region is not an ensemble of independently flashing sources, each representing a system that cascades in energy after an initial trigger. On the contrary, there is a causal connection between the sources at any time. The analysis of the four spike events suggests that the structure in frequency is not stochastic but a process in which spikes at nearby locations are simultaneously triggered by a common exciter.…