Influence of internal structure of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) on their propagation in WSA-ENLIL cone modeling

Community Coordinated Modeling Center Team Axel A. García Burgos Embry Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) Intern at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Antti Pulkkinen, Ph.D. Catholic University of America (CUA) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Aleksandre Taktakishvili, Ph.D. University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Dusan Odstrcil, Ph.D. George Mason University (GUM) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center We studied the influence of internal structure of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) on their propagation in the heliosphere using WSA-ENLIL Cone Modeling. The Integrated Space Weather Analysis System and Stereo Analysis Tool at NASA/GSFC Community Coordinated Modeling Center Team were used to derive CMEs parameters: velocity, latitude, longitude, and opening angle of the cone. We studied earthward CMEs events, running five simulations for each event using different cavity parameters for the CMEs internal structure. The relationship between the cavity size and CMEs propagation time and Kp index for these events was studied. As expected, when the velocities of CMEs are higher than the ambient wind velocity, CMEs with smaller cavity propagate faster than the same size CMEs with larger cavity (lighter CMEs). Quite naturally the opposite behavior is observed when the velocities of CMEs are less than the solar wind speed. By searching for optimal way of including cavity in CME simulations this research is very important for improving capability to forecast space weather