A near-real-time data-assimilative model of the solar corona
- Cooper Downs
- Jon A. Linker
- Ronald M. Caplan
- Emily I. Mason
- Pete Riley
- Ryder Davidson
- Andres Reyes
- Erika Palmerio
- Roberto Lionello
- James Turtle
- Michal Ben-Nun
- Miko M. Stulajter
- Viacheslav S. Titov
- Tibor Török
- Lisa A. Upton
- Raphael Attie
- Bibhuti K. Jha
- Charles N. Arge
- Carl J. Henney
- Gherardo Valori
- Hanna Strecker
- Daniele Calchetti
- Dietmar Germerott
- Johann Hirzberger
- David Orozco Suárez
- Julian Blanco Rodríguez
- Sami K. Solanki
- Xin Cheng
- Sizhe Wu
2025-06-10
The Sun’s corona is its tenuous outer atmosphere of hot plasma, which is difficult to observe. Most models of the corona extrapolate its magnetic field from that measured on the photosphere (the Sun’s optical surface) over a full 27-day solar rotational period, providing a time-stationary approximation. We present a model of the corona that evolves continuously in time, by assimilating photospheric magnetic field observations as they become available. This approach reproduces dynamical features that do not appear in time-stationary models. We used the model to predict coronal structure during the total solar eclipse of 8 April 2024 near the maximum of the solar activity cycle. There is better agreement between the model predictions and eclipse observations in coronal regions located above recently assimilated photospheric data.