Flux Rope Model of the 2003 October 28–30 Coronal Mass Ejection and Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection

Abstract

A numerical model of an erupting solar flux rope is shown to reproduce both quantitative near-Sun properties of the 2003 October 28 coronal mass ejection and the timing, strength, and orientation of the fields measured in situ at 1 AU. Using a simple erupting flux rope model, we determine the best-fit parameters for this event. Our analysis shows that the orientation of the magnetic axis of the flux rope in this case rotates smoothly through approximately 50 as the flux rope apex expands from the solar surface to 1 AU. Using a global magnetospheric simulation code, we further show that the resulting model solar wind properties at 1 AU produce a magnetospheric response comparable to that computed using the actual solar wind data.