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arXiv · 0712.3076

How winding is the coast of Britain ? Conformal invariance of rocky shorelines

G. Boffetta·A. Celani·D. Dezzani·A. Seminara
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Abstract

We show that rocky shorelines with fractal dimension 4/3 are conformally invariant curves by measuring the statistics of their winding angles from global high-resolution data. Such coastlines are thus statistically equivalent to the outer boundary of the random walk and of percolation clusters. A simple model of coastal erosion gives an explanation for these results. Conformal invariance allows also to predict the highly intermittent spatial distribution of the flux of pollutant diffusing ashore.

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G. Boffetta, A. Celani, D. Dezzani, A. Seminara. 2007-12-18. How winding is the coast of Britain ? Conformal invariance of rocky shorelines. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007gl033093

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