Science Goals and Objectives
The Sun's atmosphere and solar wind play a critical role in space weather. Understanding of the global
state
of the inner heliosphere to 1 AU underlies LWS Strategic Science Areas, especially 'Physics-based Solar
Energetic Particle Forecasting Capability'.
We will develop a magnetic data driven global model to
simulate
the time-dependent state of the inner heliosphere - from the top of
chromosphere to 1 AU. The model will use AWSoM-R global MHD model developed at the University of
Michigan
(see I.V. Sokolov et al. arXiv:1609.04379 (2016)) which
has already achieved the faster than real time
performance.
This effort will lead to improved predictions of the solar wind in the heliosphere
and at 1 AU,
which is vital for CIR and CME simulations. The background wind is vital for CME propagation travel
time.
Magnetic field vector data driving will significantly improve the accuracy
of predictions of the magnetic connectivity of active regions to the Earth, which is vital for the SEP
predictions.
The time-dependent coronal modeling will include such effects as quasi-periodic
streamer
blowouts and the accumulation and expelling of the magnetic helicity. The latter study requires vector
magnetic field data to be incorporated into the model.