>>10882325HSchirmer•Jun 29, 2019
If it's random, then I'd suspect power-law avalanche statistics. Something opaque accumulates over time but then avalanches towards the star. The 200 ppm "standard size" dip implies some sort of "filling and tipping" mechanism.
To find something which might obey avalanche statistics found in granular flow, the obvious candidate is the flow of dust into the star due to P-R drag. That would supply a (generally) continuous flow of dust, but something is causing dust to accumulate and then avalanche towards the star to cause dips.
One way to check the idea of "avalanche flow" is to integrate the area of dips to see if the largest "disk dumps" are followed by a "recovery period" where more dust accumulates.
As for a possible mechanism for accumulation, there is one mention of stabilizing dust very close to a star-
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0032063379901053"The problem of electromagnetic perturbations of charged dust particle orbits in interplanetary space was reexamined in the light of the large scale spatial and temporal interplanetary plasma and field topology. Using analytical and numerical solutions for particle propagation it was shown that: ... inside 0.3 A.U. it is possible that dust particles may enter a region of magnetically resonant orbits for some time.
Copy pasted from reddit
