Fractals, Vol. 5, No.

4 (1997) 661–663
c World Scientific Publishing Company

MULTIFRACTAL CROSSOVER IN
THE MULTIPLICATIVE PROCESSES

A. BERSHADSKII
P.O.Box 39953, Ramat-Aviv 61398,
Tel-Aviv, Israel

Received May 28, 1997; Accepted June 21, 1997

Abstract
It is shown, using multifractal data on space-filling bearings, that there exists a multifractal
crossover to an effective ‘capacity’ dimension in some multiplicative processes. This result
is then used to interpret recent experimental data on multifractal structure of multiplicity
distribution in electron-positron annihilation at high energies.

1. INTRODUCTION are used to tile the region bounded by three touch-

Simple geometrical models are very useful to under-
stand basic properties of multifractal systems. An
interesting example of such models, called space-
filling bearings, was suggested in Refs. 1–3. The
construction of the space-filling fractal structure
represents an iterative process in which different
lengths are involved in a multiplicative manner. Di-
rect applications of the space-filling model could be
found in the oil drops problem, in the hydrody-
namics of porous media, and in turbulence. This
is more important for us now that this model has
a multiplicative nature and could be used to study
general properties of the multiplicative processes.
Let us recall that in Apollonian packing, for in-
stance, nonoverlapping circles of very different radii
ing circles. In the space-filling bearings model cylin-
ders having parallel axes are arranged in space in
such a manner that in the limiting case the cylin-
ders completely fill the space and, in addition, they
can roll on each other without slipping.
2. CROSSOVER
In Ref. 4, a multifractal analysis of space-filling
bearings and Apollonian packings was carried out
using the scaling behavior of the density distribu-
tion of the points where the circles touch each other.
The set of these points provides a basis for an ap-
propriate measure since for the generation number
(number of steps at the iterative process of the

661
662 A. Bershadskii

structure generation) k → ∞ the set of touching

points and the fractal itself coincide. The general-
ized dimensions Dq associated with the multifrac-
tal scaling of the distribution of touching points in
an Apollonian packing and in a space-filling bear-
ing structure were calculated in Ref. 4. Figure 1
(adapted from Ref. 4) shows the set of Dq obtained
for this situation. We chose the axes so that a
straight line in this figure corresponds to depen-
dence
q ln q Fig. 2 Spectrum of generalized dimensions Dq (adapted
Dq = D0 + a (1)
(q − 1) from Ref. 4) for a space-filling bearings. The straight lines
are drawn for comparison with critical multifractality repre-
sentations [Eqs. (1) and (2).]
where a is some constant. This dependence repre-
sents so-called critical multifractality in a vicinity
of q = 0.5 One can see that there is good agree-
ment between the data obtained for the Apollonian 3. ANNIHILATION
packing and the critical multifractality representa-
tion [Eq. (1)]. A surprising result one could see Now we would like to look the results of multifractal
in Fig. 2 (also adapted from Ref. 4), where anal- analysis of the multiplicity distributions in electron-
ogous data for the space-filling bearings structure positron annihilation at high energies6 from this
are represented. Some kind of crossover takes place point of view. In Ref. 6 the generalized dimen-
in these multifractal data in a vicinity of point with sions Dq were calculated for experimental data ob-
q ' 1. For q < 1 the simple critical multifractality tained at electron-positron annihilation from the
representation [Eq. (1)] is valid whereas for q > 1 slopes of linear relationships between lnhnq i and
the data shown in Fig. 2 could be represented by an lnhni, where n is the multiplicity in a single bin of
effective critical multifractality the (pseudo) rapidity space and h. . .i stands for the
event average. Figure 3 (adapted from Ref. 6) shows
q ln q the data obtained at electron-positron annihilation
Dq = Def f + a (2)
(q − 1)

where the effective ‘capacity’ dimension Def f <

D0 . The question is: What is the difference be-
tween Apollonian and space-filling bearings struc-
tures, that leads to existence of this crossover in
the space-fillings bearings multifractality?

Fig. 3 Spectrum of generalized dimensions Dq (adapted

Fig. 1 Spectrum of generalized dimensions Dq (adapted from Ref. 6) for the data obtained at electron-positron anni-
from Ref. 4) for an Apollonian packing. The straight line is hilation at energies 22, 34.8 and 91 GeV. The straight lines
drawn for comparison with critical multifractality represen- are drawn for comparison with critical multifractality repre-
tation [Eq. (1)]. sentations [Eqs. (1) and (2)].

at different energies 22, 34.8 and 91 GeV. Axes in
this figure are also chosen so that critical multifrac-
tality representation correspond to a straight line in
this figure. And again one could see that there is
rather good correspondence between the data and
the effective critical multifractality representation
(2) for q > 1 (different straight lines correspond to
different energies). In Fig. 3 we also show extrapola-
tion of the experimental data on values q < 1: solid
straight lines in the interval 0 < q < 1 (D0 = 1 in
this situation6 ).
In this short note we would like to give some evi-
dence of that existence of a multifractal crossover to
an effective ‘capacity’ dimension in the critical mul-
tifractality for some multiplicative processes. We
don’t understand the nature of this phenomenon
now and hope that this observation could help to
understand it in the nearest future.
Multifractal Crossover in the Multiplicative Processes 663
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author is grateful to K. R. Sreenivasan for dis-
cussions and encouragement.
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