Evolution of a realistic CME from the Sun to 1 AU with MHD modeling

Authors: Nishtha Sachdeva, Zhenguang Huang, Aniket Jivani, Hongfan Chen, Gabor Toth, Ward Manchester, Bart van der Holst

Accurate modeling  of a CME from the Sun to the Earth is a crucial step towards successful space weather forecasting capabilities. We use the 3D global MHD model, Alfven Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AWSoM) to prepare the solar wind conditions into which we launch a CME described by a  flux-rope model. The CME propagates out into the interplanetary medium, interacting with the background solar wind and finally impacting the Earth. In this work, we show the simulated properties of the CME in the corona, like the synthetic white-light images, evolution of the CME flux-rope and the CME-driven shock properties as well as the properties of the ICME arriving at 1 AU. We compare the simulated results with observations from LASCO C2/C3 and STEREO A and plasma properties at 1 AU to demonstrate the modeling capability of the AWSoM within the Space Weather Modeling Framework (SWMF).