fit funtion to the Sun electron fluxes data

Question

I'd like to fit a function to the Sun's electrons flux data (blue dots), please note that x,y axis are in the log scale. The green dots are the "best" fit from the gnuplot program. I have taken the a/x as a test function, but in the log scale that is a linear function. Could anyone give me advice which test function should I take? Great thanks for any advice:)

Answer 1

It would be helpful to include what the x/y axes represent -- the physics of the problem may suggest an answer.

For a generic approach you could just (explicitly) construct $y'=\ln y$, $x'=\ln x$ and then do polynomial fits to this data $x',y'$.

A functional form that might be worth considering is $y = c x^{a +b x}$ which could give you the curvature you're seeing in the log-log plot, but I'd only go there if there was some physical motivation for the $x^{bx}$ behaviour.

Answer 2

You probably have too few points to get a physically significant fit. To get the curvature on the log scale you might try $$\ln(y)=a\left(\ln(x)\right)^2+b\ln(x)+c,$$ i.e. fitting a parabola to those points, but it's unclear that that will give you anything of value (it gives the model $y=Cx^{b+a\ln(x)}$ which is pretty ugly).

I would say you're doing this the wrong way round: start with physical considerations to derive some kind of model and then do a fit to see if it works. The problem is that there is probably a large number of different curves that will fit those points well enough, and more so if you allow more than three or four parameters. The only way out (and even then I'd say it's a feeble one) is to get a large amount of data with large precision. Then, if a model with only a few parameters fits all your points within their uncertainty, you're on to something that theory has to account for.

It also depends on what you want your fit to do. Do you expect some kind of theoretical insight? then look to theory. Do you want to interpolate your data? then there are ready-made interpolation algorithms (some, but not all, of which include a polynomial fit to the data, though they are not usually least-squares fits to all the data but rather exact fits to part of the data). Do you want some kind of derivative or integral from that curve? then evaluate it numerically. And so on.

Answer 3

In general you don't want to be thinking "How do I fit to this data set?", but rather "What physics do I suspect here and how should I parameterize it?" so that your fit is physically meaningful.