SHINE: Solar Wind with a Time-dependent, MHD, Interplanetary Scintillation Tomography

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The main goal of this 3-year SHINE project is to locate heliospheric structures globally around the Sun, determine their relationship to the heliospheric velocity and density, and trace them back toward the Sun in a physically consistent way. This research project is directly related to one of the National Space Weather goals, namely "to determine the connections between eruptive events and the Sun, and to enhance both the understanding and predictions of solar wind geo-effective events." This project would yield a major step forward in the simulation of complex, turbulent gas systems (both charged and neutral) in the inner Solar System and elsewhere. The development of physical models that embrace "coupling complexity" via the self-consistent incorporation of multiple physical processes is viewed as a pivotal development in the different plasma physics areas for the current decade. The research effort will also provide leadership in promoting plasma physics and computational science within the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the University of California in San Diego campuses. Furthermore, through the training of a broad spectrum of students, scientists and engineers, the project will foster Space Physics research within the State of Alabama. The research and EPO agenda of this SHINE project supports the Strategic Goals of the AGS Division in discovery, learning, diversity, and interdisciplinary research.The main objective of this SHINE project is to develop and utilize a new MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) - IPS (interplanetary scintillations) tomography tool of the solar wind (SW) in order to investigate the evolution of the SW plasma and magnetic field, as well as turbulent fluctuations, from distances beyond the critical point outwards to heliocentric distances of 1-5 AU. The team will study the propagation of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) into the distant SW, paying particular attention to the magnetic field structure inside CMEs, which is of particular importance for geo-effective events. Moreover, by way of performing the numerical simulations, the CMEs will be propagating through a realistic SW background to the points where the distributions will be compared with the spacecraft data. This will allow the researchers to investigate the effect of CMEs and other transient events on the Earth and interplanetary environment, and help formulate the safety requirements for future interplanetary missions. This makes it a valuable asset for their investigation of "the solar cycle dependence of CMEs, including their propagation through and their interaction with the background SW, including the linking of interplanetary and near-Sun phenomena," as stated in the goals of the NSF's SHINE program.