Three-dimensional MHD simulation of coronal mass ejections

A parallel adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) scheme for solving the governing equations of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in three space dimensions is used herein to investigate the structure and evolution of a coronal mass ejection (CME) propagating from the solar surface at 1 R-s out into the inner heliosphere to distances approaching 1/2 AU. The highly parallelized solution algorithm makes use of modem finite-volume numerical methodology to provide a combination of high solution accuracy and computational robustness. Numerical results are discussed for a CME driven by local plasma density enhancement with a simplified representation of the background solar wind. The latter approximates the interplanetary magnetic field and two-stream nature of the solar wind for conditions near solar minimum. The predicted evolution and structure of the CME are described. The results demonstrate the potential of the parallel adaptive MHD model for enhancing the understanding of coronal physics and solar wind plasma processes. (C) 2000 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.