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Modeling the Solar Wind During Different Phases of the Last Solar Cycle

Presentation #120.02 in the session Predicting solar wind properties across the heliosphere with integrated modeling efforts (empirical or first-principles) — Poster Session.

Published onOct 20, 2022
Modeling the Solar Wind During Different Phases of the Last Solar Cycle

It’s critical to have an accurate solar wind background in the inner heliosphere for space weather prediction, from the arrival of Corotating Interaction Regions (CIRs), to the propagation of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs). Many solar wind models (either (semi-)empirical or first-principles based) have successfully modeled the solar wind background in the past. However, in order to achieve a reasonable comparison with the observed solar wind, the initial or boundary conditions of the model needs to be adjusted when modeling the different phases of the solar cycle. For example, the Alfven Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AWSoM) developed at the University of Michigan is a first principles model and could simulate the solar wind background accurately during the solar minimum and maximum with different input parameters. On the other hand, uncertain and adjustable input parameters for first principles models could greatly affect the simulation results. It is still unclear how different input parameters should be adjusted during different phases of the solar cycle to best simulate the solar wind properties for a specific rotation. This presentation makes a first attempt to simulate the solar wind with AWSoM during different phases of the last solar cycle and determine the optimal value of one of the most important input parameters of the model, the Poynting flux parameter that controls the energy flux through the chromospheric boundary of the model in form of Alfven wave turbulence. Moreover, we find that the optimal value of the Poynting flux determined by AWSoM is linearly correlated with the open magnetic flux.

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