Advancing in-situ modeling of ICMEs: Insights from remote observations and simulations

One of the underlying problems in the investigation of CME genesis and evolution is relating remote- sensing observations of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to in-situ observations of interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs). Typically, the global structure of a CME projected onto the plane of the sky is obtained through remote-sensing, while local, yet highly-quantitative measurements of an ICME are made in situ along a spacecraft trajectory. Modeling the structure of these observations at the Sun and in situ has begun to bridge the gap between these vastly different types of observations, yet there is still a long way to go. Remote sensing observations and MHD simulations indicate we need to understand ICMEs in their entirety, including the various internal substructures in order to make comparisons between line-of-sight and in situ observations. This requires advancing ICME modeling beyond the flux rope boundaries. We have addressed this difficulty by developing a Delaunay triangulation method to combine multispacecraft in-situ observations to infer a more global structure of ICMEs in the plane of the spacecraft observations. We present a description of these techniques and a comparison with data.