Field Line Universal relaXer (FLUX): A Fluxon Approach to Coronal Magnetic Field Modeling

Abstract

We describe a novel method for modeling the global, steady solar wind using photospheric magnetic fields as a driving boundary condition. Prior wind models in this class include both rapid heuristic methods that use potential field extrapolation and variants thereof, trading rigor for computation speed, and detailed 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) models that attempt to simulate the entire solar corona with a degree of physical rigor, but require large amounts of computation. The Field Line Universal relaXer (FLUX), an open-source numerical code which implements the 'fluxon' semi-lagrangian approach to MHD modeling, provides an intermediate approach between these two general classes. In particular, the fluxon approach to MHD describes the magnetic field through discrete analogues of magnetic field lines, relaxing these structures to a stationary state of force balance. In this work we introduce a one-dimensional solar wind solution along each fieldline, providing an ensemble of solutions that are interpolated back onto a uniform grid at an outer boundary surface. This provides advantages in physical rigor over heuristic semi-analytic techniques, and in computational efficiency over full 3D MHD techniques. Here we describe the underlying methodology and the FLUXPipe modeling pipeline process.