Modeling Magnetic Structures in the Inner Heliosphere

Dusan Odstrcil, George Mason University Fairfax, Physics and Astronomy, Fairfax, VA, United States, Anthony Bourdelle, University Paul Sabatier Toulouse III, Toulouse Cedex 09, France, Valbona Kunkel, George Mason University Fairfax, Fairfax, VA, United States, Alexis P Rouillard, IRAP, Toulouse, France and Marek Vandas, Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic
Abstract:
Currently, the WSA-ENLIL-Cone modeling system is used by various space weather agencies for operational forecasting of corotating and transient solar wind disturbances in the inner heliosphere. This modeling system provides global context and arrival times of the solar wind streams and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to Earth, planets, and spacecraft. Such predictions are running continuously and much faster than real time. However, CME-like disturbances are generated by launching hydrodynamic transients and thus it is not possible to predict the southward magnetic field (-Bz). In this presentation, we use 3-D analytic models of spheromaks and flux ropes, launch them into the background solar wind at 0.1 AU and simulate their evolution in the inner heliosphere. We discuss differences between these two models and effects of the background magnetic field on their propagation and distortion.
Back to: Sun-Earth Connection: A Mid-Course Correction, and Observations and Modeling of Bz II