MHD Simulation of a Solar Eruption from Active Region 11429 Driven by a Photospheric Velocity Field

Abstract

Data-driven simulation is becoming an important approach for realistically characterizing the configuration and evolution of solar active regions, revealing the onset mechanism of solar eruption events, and hopefully achieving the goal of accurate space weather forecasting, which is beyond the scope of any existing theoretical modeling. Here we performed a full 3D MHD simulation using the data-driven approach and followed the whole evolution process from the quasi-static phase to eruption successfully for solar active region (AR) NOAA 11429. The MHD system was driven at the bottom boundary by a photospheric velocity field, which is derived by the DAVE4VM method from the observed vector magnetograms. The simulation shows that a magnetic flux rope was generated by a persistent photospheric flow before the flare onset and then triggered to erupt by torus instability. Our simulation demonstrates a high degree of consistency with observations in the preeruption magnetic structure, the timescale of the quasi-static stage, the pattern of flare ribbons, as well as the time evolution of the magnetic energy injection and total unsigned magnetic flux. We further found that an eruption can also be initiated in the simulation driven by only the horizontal components of the photospheric flow, but a comparison of the different simulations indicates that the vertical flow at the bottom boundary is necessary for reproducing more realistically these observed features, emphasizing the importance of flux emergence during the development of this AR.

Keywords

• Solar coronal mass ejections
• Solar flares
• Solar active region magnetic fields
• Magnetohydrodynamics
• Magnetohydrodynamical simulations