3D MHD modeling of non-stationary flow in the heliosheath

Both Voyager 1 and 2 data show that the heliosheath region is highly dynamic. As we climb out of the extended solar minima, time variations will be more and more important. The variations in the solar wind parameters in the heliosheath can be affected by the propagation of different interplanetary disturbances to the outer heliosphere. Using a 3D MHD multi-fluid code based on BATS-R-US (Opher et al. 2009), with a highly resolved spatial grid in Voyager 2 direction (size of a cell 0.48 AU) we study the propagation of the solar wind large-scale structures in the heliosheath region. We present our first results on the propagation of a forward-reverse shock pair and an abrupt pulse of solar wind dynamic pressure in the heliosheath region. We discuss in details the structure of the flow in the heliosheath and the response of the heliopause to the disturbances. We analyze the intensity of variations of the plasma parameters (magnetic field and speed) as measured in Voyager 2. We conclude that reflected waves appear in the heliosheath and they may contribute to the variations in solar wind parameters measured at Voyager spacecrafts. We present as well the initial results from a realistic propagation of a global merged interaction regions (GMIR) from the Sun to the heliospheric boundaries using a new coupled inner heliosphere-to outer heliosphere module.