Evolution of Coronal Mass Ejections in Different Data-Driven Solar Wind Conditions

TL;DR

This study investigates how different data-driven magnetic field maps influence the simulation of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and their propagation in the solar wind, emphasizing the importance of input data accuracy for space weather predictions.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates the significant impact of varying magnetic field input maps on CME evolution in data-driven solar wind models, highlighting uncertainties in space weather forecasting.

Findings

Different input maps cause significant variations in CME speed and direction.

CME mass and energy estimates vary with the background solar wind conditions.

Uncertainties in input magnetic data affect the reliability of CME propagation simulations.

Abstract

Numerical models of the solar wind and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) utilize photospheric magnetic field observations to prescribe the inner boundary conditions for the plasma solutions. These magnetic field data are available to the community through various observational instruments, prepared via different methodologies and/or flux-transport models. The solar wind solution driven by these maps provides the ambient plasma environment into which CMEs travel, coupling, and interacting with the surrounding plasma and governing the CME evolution and propagation in the solar corona and inner heliosphere. In this work, we use different input magnetic field maps for the same time period to drive the global Alfven Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AWSoM). We obtain the ambient solar wind conditions and compare the plasma properties and magnetic morphology in the coronal domain to study the influence of the input maps. To understand how the resulting coronal solutions impact CMEs, we launch eruptions described by analytical flux ropes into these data-driven solutions and compare their evolution in the coronal domain (up to 24 solar radii radially). The CMEs achieve varying speeds, deceleration rates, propagation directions, mass and energies while coupling with the background solar wind. We quantify these differences to show that the different input driving maps can significantly impact the simulated CME propagation in the solar wind plasma. This also highlights the importance of understanding the uncertainties associated with data-driven modeling that become increasingly important in operational models and space weather prediction.