Authors: Jon A. Linker, Zoran Mikic, Roberto Lionello, Pete Riley
Affiliation: Science Applications International Corporation
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are spectacular manifestations of solar activity.
These immense eruptions of plasma and magnetic field are propelled outward from
the sun with velocities as high as 2000 km/s. The fastest CMEs typically originate
from active regions on the Sun.
We describe MHD computations of the eruptive behavior of a localized active
region field (modeled as a localized bipole) within a large-scale dipolar configuration.
We discuss the differences between this more realistic configuration and some
of the idealized configurations that have been considered previously.
Work supported by NASA and the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling
(an NSF Science and Technology Center).