Natural Time Analysis: The New View of Time

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This book explores the theory and applications of a new time domain called natural time, introduced by the authors nearly a decade ago. It reveals that analyzing time series in this domain uncovers novel dynamical features in complex systems, facilitating the reduction of uncertainty and extraction of signal information. Natural time analysis allows for the study of a system's dynamical evolution and helps identify critical stages, playing a crucial role in predicting impending catastrophic events. The book details various examples from fields such as Earth Sciences, Biology, and Physics, including identifying sudden cardiac death risks in Cardiology, recognizing electric signals preceding earthquakes, determining the timing of major mainshocks in Seismology, and analyzing magnetic flux penetration in type II superconductors in Condensed Matter Physics. It focuses on time-series analysis of signals from complex systems using the new time domain, providing advanced students and researchers with a solid foundation in detecting long-range correlations in complex time series. Additionally, modern Statistical Physics techniques, like Hurst analysis, detrended fluctuation analysis, and wavelet transforms, are presented, highlighting their advantages when applied in the natural time domain.