title: 1/f noise and extreme value statistics.
abstract: We study finite-size scaling of the roughness of signals in systems displaying Gaussian 1/f power spectra. It is found that one of the extreme value distributions, the Fisher-Tippett-Gumbel (FTG) distribution, emerges as the scaling function when boundary conditions are periodic. We provide a realistic example of periodic 1/f noise, and demonstrate by simulations that the FTG distribution is a good approximation for the case of nonperiodic boundary conditions as well. Experiments on voltage fluctuations in GaAs films are analyzed and excellent agreement is found with the theory.
authors.affiliation: Département de Physique Théorique, Université de Genève, CH 1211 Genève 4, Switzerland.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Antal
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Droz
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Györgyi
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Rácz