| Issue |
A&A
Volume 670, February 2023
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A14 | |
| Number of page(s) | 13 | |
| Section | The Sun and the Heliosphere | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244483 | |
| Published online | 27 January 2023 | |
Eruption and propagation of twisted flux ropes from the base of the solar corona to 1 au
1
Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, Rue Jean Teillac, 91405 Orsay, France
e-mail: fl.regnault@gmail.com
2
Département d’Astrophysique/AIM, CEA/IRFU, CNRS/INSU, Univ. Paris-Saclay & Univ. de Paris, Orme des merisiers, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
3
Space Science Center, Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Hampshire, College Road, Durham, NH 03824, USA
Received:
11
July
2022
Accepted:
27
October
2022
Context. Interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) originate from the eruption of complex magnetic structures occurring in our star’s atmosphere. Determining the general properties of ICMEs and the physical processes at the heart of their interactions with the solar wind is a hard task, in particular using only unidimensional in situ profiles. Thus, these phenomena are still not well understood.
Aims. In this study we simulate the propagation of a set of flux ropes in order to understand some of the physical processes occurring during the propagation of an ICME, such as their growth or their rotation.
Methods. We present simulations of the propagation of a set of flux ropes in a simplified solar wind. We consider different magnetic field strengths and sizes at the initiation of the eruption, and characterize their influence on the properties of the flux ropes during their propagation. We use the 3D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) module of the PLUTO code on an adaptive mesh refinement grid.
Results. The evolution of the magnetic field of the flux rope during the propagation matches evolution law deduced from in situ observations. We also simulate in situ profiles that spacecraft would have measured at the Earth, and we compare these data with the results of statistical studies. We find a good match between simulated in situ profiles and typical profiles obtained in these studies. During their propagation, flux ropes interact with the magnetic field of the wind, but still show realistic signatures of ICMEs when analyzed with synthetic satellite crossings. We also show that flux ropes with different shapes and orientations can lead to similar unidimensional crossings. This warrants some care when extracting the magnetic topology of ICMEs using unidimensional crossings.
Key words: magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) / methods: numerical / Sun: coronal mass ejections (CMEs)
Note to the reader: the affiliation number associated with author M. Janvier was incorrectly modified from 1 to 3. The correct number 1 was put back on 22 September 2023.
© The Authors 2023
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe-to-Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.