Modeling the initiation of the 2006 December 13 coronal mass ejection in AR 10930: the structure and dynamics of the erupting flux rope

Abstract

We carry out a three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulation to model the initiation of the coronal mass ejection (CME) on 13 December 2006 in the emerging δ-sunspot active region NOAA 10930. The setup of the simulation is similar to a previous simulation by Fan (2011), but with a significantly widened simulation domain to accommodate the wide CME. The simulation shows that the CME can result from the emergence of a east-west oriented twisted flux rope whose positive, following emerging pole corresponds to the observed positive rotating sunspot emerging against the southern edge of the dominant pre-existing negative sunspot. The erupting flux rope in the simulation accelerates to a terminal speed that exceeds 1500 km/s and undergoes a counter-clockwise rotation of nearly 180 degrees such that its front and flanks all exhibit southward directed magnetic fields, explaining the observed southward magnetic field in the magnetic cloud impacting the Earth. With continued driving of flux emergence, the source region coronal magnetic field also shows the reformation of a coronal flux rope underlying the flare current sheet of the erupting flux rope, ready for a second eruption. This may explain the build up for another X-class eruptive flare that occurred the following day from the same region.

27 pages, 12 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

References in corpus (7)

• Torus instability
• Non-linear force-free field modeling of a solar active region around the time of a major flare and coronal mass ejection
• Numerical simulations of fast and slow coronal mass ejections
• Interaction between a fast rotating sunspot and ephemeral regions as the origin of the major solar event on 2006 December 13
• A Comprehensive View of the 2006 December 13 CME: From the Sun to Interplanetary Space
• A Comprehensive Method of Estimating Electric Fields from Vector Magnetic Field and Doppler Measurements
• May 12 1997 Cme Event: I. a Simplified Model of the Pre-Eruptive Magnetic Structure

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Defining the Middle Corona
• MHD simulations of the eruption of coronal flux ropes under coronal streamers
• Exploring Plasma Heating in the Current Sheet Region in a Three-Dimensional Coronal Mass Ejection Simulation
• Toward a Unified Explanation for the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
• Magnetic helicity estimations in models and observations of the solar magnetic field. Part IV: Application to solar observations
• Photospheric Shear Flows in Solar Active Regions and Their Relation to Flare Occurrence
• An improved MHD simulation of the 2006 December 13 coronal mass ejection of active region NOAA 10930
• Tether-cutting and Overlying Magnetic Reconnections in an MHD Simulation of Prominence-cavity System
• Computation of Relative Magnetic Helicity in Spherical Coordinates
• Houdini for Astrophysical Visualization
• Expulsion of counter Evershed flows from sunspot penumbrae
• Non-Neutralized Electric Current of Active Regions Explained as a Projection Effect