Turbulence-Driven Coronal Heating and Improvements to Empirical Forecasting of the Solar Wind

Abstract

Forecasting models of the solar wind often rely on simple parameterizations of the magnetic field that ignore the effects of the full magnetic field geometry. In this paper, we present the results of two solar wind prediction models that consider the full magnetic field profile and include the effects of Alfvén waves on coronal heating and wind acceleration. The one-dimensional MHD code ZEPHYR self-consistently finds solar wind solutions without the need for empirical heating functions. Another 1D code, introduced in this paper (The Efficient Modified-Parker-Equation-Solving Tool, TEMPEST), can act as a smaller, stand-alone code for use in forecasting pipelines. TEMPEST is written in Python and will become a publicly available library of functions that is easy to adapt and expand. We discuss important relations between the magnetic field profile and properties of the solar wind that can be used to independently validate prediction models. ZEPHYR provides the foundation and calibration for TEMPEST, and ultimately we will use these models to predict observations and explain space weather created by the bulk solar wind. We are able to reproduce with both models the general anticorrelation seen in comparisons of observed wind speed at 1 AU and the flux tube expansion factor. There is significantly less spread than comparing the results of the two models than between ZEPHYR and a traditional flux tube expansion relation. We suggest that the new code, TEMPEST, will become a valuable tool in the forecasting of space weather.

arXiv comment12 pages, 11 figures; accepted to ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather
• The Role of Turbulence in Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Expansion
• A multiple flux-tube solar wind model
• Turbulence Transport Modeling and First Orbit Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Observations
• Ensemble Simulations of Proton Heating in the Solar Wind via Turbulence and Ion Cyclotron Resonance
• Flux-tube geometry and solar wind speed during an activity cycle
• 3-Phase Evolution of a Coronal Hole, Part II: The Magnetic Field
• On the Conservation of Turbulence Energy in Turbulence Transport Models
• Time-Dependent Turbulent Heating of Open Flux Tubes in the Chromosphere, Corona, and Solar Wind
• Turbulent Proton Heating Rate in the Solar Wind from $5$ to $45R_{\odot }$
• Three-dimensional simulations of the inhomogeneous Low Solar Wind
• Shock-wave radio probing of solar wind sources in coronal magnetic fields
• Solar wind modeling: a computational tool for the classroom
• Magnetic Influences on the Solar Wind (Ph.D. Dissertation)
• An Essay On Interactive Investigations Of The Zeeman Effect In The Interstellar Medium