Automated driving for global non-potential simulations of the solar corona

Abstract

We describe a new automated technique for active region emergence in coronal magnetic field models, based on the inversion of the electric field locally from a single line-of-sight magnetogram for each region. The technique preserves the arbitrary shapes of magnetic field distribution associated with individual active regions and incorporates emerging magnetic helicity (twist) in a parametrized manner through a noninductive electric field component. We test the technique with global magnetofrictional simulations of the coronal magnetic field during Solar Cycle 24 Maximum from 2011 June 1 to 2011 December 31. The active regions are determined in a fully automated and objective way using Spaceweather HMI Active Region Patch (SHARP) data. Our primary aim is to constrain two free parameters in the emergence algorithm: the duration of emergence and the twist parameter for each individual active region. While the duration has a limited effect on the resulting coronal magnetic field, changing the sign and amplitude of the twist parameters profoundly influences the amount of nonpotentiality generated in the global coronal magnetic field. We explore the possibility of constraining both the magnitude and sign of the twist parameter using estimates of the current helicity derived from vector magnetograms and supplied in the SHARP metadata for each region. Using the observed sign of twist for each region reduces the overall nonpotentiality in the corona, highlighting the importance of scatter in the emerging active region helicities.