SH11F-02
Thermodynamic MHD Simulations of Jets in the Solar Corona and Inner Heliosphere
Thermodynamic MHD Simulations of Jets in the Solar Corona and Inner Heliosphere
Monday, 14 December 2015: 08:20
2011 (Moscone West)
Abstract:
Coronal jets are transient, collimated plasma ejections that occur predominantly in coronal holes and are observed in EUV, soft X-ray, and occasionally in white-light coronagraphs. While these intriguing phenomena have been studied and modeled for more than two decades, the details of their formation mechanism(s) are not yet fully understood, and their potential role for the generation of the fast solar wind remains largely elusive.Here we present 3D MHD simulations of coronal jets which are performed in a large computational domain (up to 20 solar radii) and incorporate the effects of thermal conduction, radiative cooling, empirical coronal heating, and the solar wind. These features allow us to model the plasma properties and energy transfer of coronal jets in a more realistic manner than done so far, and to study the amount of energy and mass transported by these phenomena into the higher corona and inner heliosphere.
In order to produce a jet, we consider a simple, purely radial background magnetic field and slowly introduce a magnetic flux rope into the coronal configuration by coupling our model to dynamic flux emergence simulations at the lower boundary of the computational domain. We find two types of jets in our simulations: a very impulsive event reminiscent of so-called blowout jets and a slowly developing, more extended event that produces a long-lasting signature in the corona. We present synthetic satellite images for both types of events and discuss their respective formation mechanisms. Our analysis is supported by a detailed investigation of
the magnetic topology for the blowout-type case and of the transport of energy and plasma into the higher corona and inner heliosphere for the long-lasting event.