Are Electric-field-driven Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of the Solar Corona Sensitive to the Initial Condition?

Abstract

Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the solar corona are often started from a potential field initial condition, which may be far from the true state of the coronal magnetic field. To test the sensitivity of the simulations to the initial condition, an electric-field-driven MHD code was initiated from three different initial conditions: the commonly used potential field, a nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) extrapolation, which is believed to be a better representation of the true coronal magnetic field, and a purely vertical field. After relaxation, the magnetic field in the MHD simulations was compared. It was found that there is a tendency for all of the initial conditions to converge to a similar connectivity, particularly in areas of strong fields that are not close to the boundary, suggesting that the final state of the simulation is not particularly sensitive to the initial condition. The relaxed solution more closely resembles the NLFFF initial condition than the other initial conditions, but still exhibits substantial differences from it.