Observing and Modeling the Sun-Earth System

Solar eruptions are powered by magnetic energy stored in the Sun’s atmosphere, but the magnetic structure that exists before an eruption is difficult to determine. In particular, scientists debate whether solar filaments are supported by pre-existing, twisted magnetic flux ropes or by less twisted magnetic arcades that form flux ropes only during eruption. We developed a physics-informed method that reconstructs the three-dimensional magnetic field using measurements from both the Sun’s visible surface and the chromosphere above it.

We present a data-inspired simulation of NOAA active region AR 11158. We simulate the formation of a collisional polarity inversion line (cPIL) by moving sunspots in a quadrupolar configuration along the centroid positions extracted from AR 11158. This process builds up free energy in the corona exceeding 4 × 10³² erg, out of which about 2 × 10³² erg are released in an X-flare followed by a series of smaller flares in the B to M range.

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large eruptions of plasma from the Sun that can affect space weather near Earth. Coronagraphs observe these eruptions by measuring sunlight scattered by electrons in the solar corona and heliosphere. However, these images are two-dimensional projections of a three-dimensional structure, which makes it difficult to determine the true shape, density, and motion of a CME. We introduce SuNeRF-CME, a new method for reconstructing the three-dimensional plasma structure of CMEs from coronagraph images taken from multiple viewpoints.