Proof of Concept Tests of Photospheric Data Driving Methods

With the advent of high resolution, high time cadence vector magnetogram observations from HMI on the SDO satellite, it now becomes increasingly feasible to drive simulations of the solar corona with observed vector magnetogram sequences. Such data driving, however, inherently has a number of theoretical problems, the foremost of which is that vertical gradients in magnetic and velocity fields are formally required to provide well defined boundary conditions in such simulations, yet those are not available from the observed data. To test how well data driving would work, given what is available from these observations, we present a set of proof of concept simulations where data from one simulation is used as the data driving lower boundary condition of a second simulation. We use photospheric data slices from simulations of dynamical flux emergence, which span the upper convection zone to the lower corona, as the input driving data for a second, coronal simulation which has the photosphere as its lower boundary. We report on what the minimum requirements are, in terms of how much data must be input at the boundary, to exactly reproduce the initial simulation. We then report on what changes occur in the simulation if the input simulation data is restricted to only those photospheric quantities which can currently be observed. Our ultimate goal is to use this to develop a well tested method for integrating observed data into such a data driving simulation. This work is supported by the Office of Naval Research and the NASA Living with a Star and Heliospheric Guest Investigator Programs.