Ensemble modeling of interplanetary CMEs with data-constrained internal magnetic flux rope

Understanding the evolution of the CME magnetic structure as it propagates through the interplanetary space is a key aspect in the development of forecasting of magnetic properties of a CME arriving at Earth and thus its impact on space weather. To analyze processes of interplanetary CME (ICME)/solar-wind interactions and the role of CME flux rope specification and solar wind background structure, we take a statistical approach and perform thousands of data-driven MHD simulations of ICME propagation in the inner heliosphere. Data-driven modeling of ICMEs in the inner heliosphere (starting beyond the critical surface in the corona) presents an attractive and computationally feasible approach, since it bypasses the complex problem of CME initiation and eruption in the corona. We simulate the propagation of ICMEs in the inner heliosphere using a global model driven at the coronal boundary by the Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA)-ADAPT model. ICMEs are initiated at 21.5 solar radii using an MHD analytical Gibson-Low (G&L) model of a self-similarly expanding magnetic flux rope with defining parameters (e.g., location, magnetic topology, width, magnetic field strength, speed, orientation). The ICME propagation is simulated using the inner heliosphere version of the Grid Agnostic MHD for Extended Research Applications (GAMERA) MHD model, which is a reinvention of the high-heritage Lyon-Fedder-Mobarry (LFM) code. A set of values for each of the defining G&L parameters was constrained by statistical representation of solar CME observations. With the aim to span the solar cycle, we model ICME propagation in different solar wind backgrounds corresponding to rising, maximum, declining and minimum solar cycle phases. A grid of G&L parameters and four solar wind backgrounds constitute a parameter space for thousands of MHD ICME runs. For each of the simulations we extract synthetic in-situ observations of ICME as it passes Earth and synthetic white-light images of an ICME as it propagates in the interplanetary space. We present an analysis of produced distributions of ICME parameters and characteristics.