Space Physics Seminar spring-2015

Understanding how solar eruptions form and evolve in the solar atmosphere is a key topic in solar and heliospheric physics. The nature of these eruptions, also known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), is interesting not only from a basic scientific perspective, but also because CMEs routinely disturb the inner heliosphere, and their buffeting of the Earth can sometimes have important geomagnetic consequences. Although observations and models of CMEs have improved considerably in the space age, the complexity of these events makes it surprisingly difficult to unambiguously connect various observed aspects to their physical underpinnings.

In this talk I will give an overview of present techniques and challenges involved in realistically modeling the magnetized solar corona and CMEs, with a particular focus on new methods that can help bridge the sometimes large gap between theory and observations. One such example is the study of large-scale coronal waves launched by CMEs, where using simulations as digital laboratories has aided in interpreting previously ambiguous observations. Other related aspects, such as capturing the magnetic interaction of CMEs with pre-existing coronal structures and the vetting of coronal models in general will also be discussed.