Flux-rope Visualizing Tool to Link Global and Local Views

Abstract:

The entrained magnetic structure associated with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are the main drivers of geomagnetic activity. Thus, a reliable prediction of the ICME internal magnetic field structure is a requisite for developing a robust space weather forecast capability. Often, the in-situ imprints of the Interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs) display signatures of a confined magnetized plasma wrapped by helical magnetic field lines. The modeling and 3D reconstruction efforts are based on flux-rope topologies; locally (in-situ observations) based on axial-symmetric geometry, and globally (remote-sensing observations) based on a toroidal geometry. Still today, the reconciliation of both view-points is lacking a model or reconstruction that connects both sides.

This contribution aspires to closing the gap between the local and the global view-points by providing a tool to exhibit a 3D global perspective based on the results from the in-situ reconstruction of the heliospheric magnetic flux-ropes. We have developed an interactive tool for users to easily visualize a magnetic flux rope based on the model developed in Nieves-Chinchilla et al. 2018 (ApJ). The tool allows the user to change the model’s input parameters in a graphical user interface (GUI) and see the effect of these changes on the model. It illustrates flux ropes in a Sun-Earth system and for different observatories (i.e. Wind, STEREO, Bepi Colombo, PSP or Solar Orbiter), where users can visualize a spacecraft’s trajectory through a flux rope in an interactive animation. Inside the GUI some features have been added to facilitate the interaction with the model parameters. For instance, users can create and save animations of the flux rope as it propagates through space in different reference frames, add/remove field lines or represent the synthetic in-situ data for a given set of parameters.