Flare Simulations with the MURaM Radiative MHD Code

Abstract:

Over the past few years the MURaM radiative MHD code was expanded for its capability to simulate the coupled solar atmosphere from the upper convection zone into the lower solar corona. The code includes the essential physics to synthesize thermal emission ranging from the visible spectrum in the photosphere to EUV and soft X-ray from transition region and corona. A more sophisticated treatment of the chromosphere is currently under development. After a brief review of the code's capabilities and limitations we present a new setup that allows to create collisional polarity inversion lines (cPILs) and study the coronal response including flares. In the setup we start with a bipolar sunspot configuration and set the spots on collision course by imposing the appropriate velocity field at the footpoints in the subphotospheric boundary. We vary parameters such as the initial spot separation, collision speed and collision distance. We discuss the applicability/implications of such setup to investigate the way cPILs form and produce eruptions and present preliminary results.