Three-Dimensional Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of a Global Solar Corona Using a Temperature Distribution Map Obtained from SOHO EIT Measurements

The temperature at the base of the solar corona is one of the important factors in determining the solar coronal structure. In this Letter, we performed the time-dependent magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation for the solar corona utilizing the temperature map derived from the multiwavelength observation by the EUV Imaging Telescope (EIT) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory(SOHO) and the magnetic field map from the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on SOHO. We analyzed the difference in three-dimensional magnetic field topology obtained when the uniform base temperature adopted in standard simulations is replaced by the observation-based, nonuniform temperature distribution. The differences in the magnetic field topology obtained as the response of the solar corona to the changes of the temperature at the coronal base depict the role of the plasma conditions at the coronal base in the dynamics of the global solar corona. This work is our first effort to utilize the data of the solar coronal plasma as the boundary condition to enhance the MHD simulations of a solar corona. Subject headings: methods: numerical — MHD — solar wind — Sun: corona Online material: color figures