Three-dimensional MHD modeling of the solar wind structures associated with 13 December 2006 coronal mass ejection

Abstract

A 3-D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation is performed to reconstruct the interplanetary propagation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) that occurred on 13 December 2006. A spheromak-type magnetic field is superposed on a realistic ambient solar wind to reproduce the large-scale interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) associated with the CME. Here we show that a westward and southward directed spheromak CME with reasonable geometric, dynamic, and magnetic parameters reproduces the magnetic cloud, interplanetary shock, and sheath profiles as observed by in situ spacecraft. We suggest that the simple solar wind model developed in this study is topologically complex enough to be consistent with in situ observations, such as southward IMF associated with CMEs.