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FIZIKA A 14 (2005) 2, 195 - 206
 
RADON CHAOTIC REGIME IN THE ATMOSPHERE AND SOIL
VANJA RADOLIĆ, BRANKO VUKOVIĆ, DENIS STANIĆ and JOSIP PLANINIĆ1
Department of Physics, University of Osijek, P.O. Box 144, 31000 Osijek,
Croatia
1E-mail: planinic@ffos.hr
Received 22 October 2004; Revised manuscript received 8 March
2005
Accepted 4 April 2005 Online 4 December 2005
Radon concentrations were continuously measured outdoors, in a basement and in soil.
The readings were made every 10 minutes and the series of records were analyzed to extract
phase-space dynamical information. The application of fractal methods allowed exploration
of the chaotic nature of radon in the atmosphere and soil. The computed fractal
dimensions, such as the Hurst exponent (H) from the rescaled-range analysis, Lyapunov
exponent (l) and attractor dimension, provided estimates of the
degree of chaotic behaviour. The obtained low values of the Hurst exponent (0 < H <
0.5) indicate anti-persistent behaviour (non-random changes) of the series, but the
positive values of l have pointed out a great sensitivity to
initial conditions and the deterministic chaos that appeared in the variations of the
radon concentrations. The calculated fractal dimensions of attractors indicate strong
influence of meteorological parameters on radon in the atmosphere and soil.
PACS numbers: 87.52.-g, 92.30.Px, 05.45.Tp
UDC 539.164
Keywords: radon concentration in atmosphere, deterministic chaos, fractal dimensions,
meteorological parameters
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