Magnetohydrodynamic Modeling of Background Solar Wind near Mars: Comparison with MAVEN and Tianwen-1

Abstract

Combined with data assimilation methods, a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical model is an effective tool to explore the mechanism of space weather. As a driver of space weather, the dynamic development of stream interaction regions (SIRs) near the orbit of Mars is an area of active research. In this study, we use the interplanetary total variation diminishing (TVD) MHD model to simulate solar wind parameters and model SIRs near Mars from 2021 November 15 to 2021 December 31. In this model, the MHD equations are solved by the conservation TVD Lax–Friedrichs scheme in a rotating spherical coordinate system with six component meshes used on the spherical shell. Solar wind velocity, density, temperature, and magnetic field strength are given at the inner boundary due to the characteristic waves propagating outward. We compared modeled results with observations from Mars Atmospheric Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) and Tianwen-1 (China’s first Mars exploration mission). Statistical analysis shows that the simulated results can capture SIRs and are in good agreement with observations; moreover, the assimilated results based on the Kalman filter improve the accuracy of numerical prediction compared with simulated results. This paper is the first attempt to simulate SIR events combined with MAVEN and Tianwen-1 in situ observations. Our work demonstrates that using the MHD model with the Kalman filter to reconstruct solar wind parameters can help us study the characteristics of SIRs near Mars, improve the capabilities of space weather forecasting, and understand the background solar wind environment.

Keywords

• Solar wind
• Magnetohydrodynamical simulations
• Corotating streams
• Mars