Simulating Propagation of a Coronal Mass Ejection from Solar Corona to 1 au with the Alfvén Wave Solar Atmosphere Model and Fitting of Gibson–Low

Abstract Fitting of Gibson–Low (FGL) is a newly developed time-dependent self-similar forward-reconstruction method of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) based on the analytic Gibson–Low model. This method is able to reconstruct the plasma velocity, density, pressure, and magnetic field of CMEs using data from coronagraphs and magnetographs. In this paper, the reconstructed CME on 2011 March 7 is inserted into the CR2107 background solar wind generated by steady-state mode of Alfvén Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AWSoM), which heats and drives the solar wind based on the propagation, dissipation, and reflection of the Alfvén wave turbulence. Then the time-accurate mode of AWSoM simulates the CME propagation from solar corona to inner heliosphere. We compare the simulation results and observations to evaluate the performance of AWSoM+FGL through two quantitative criteria, Pearson correlation coefficient and mean absolute percentage error. At last, the parameters of FGL are changed to different values to show how such adjustment may influence the simulation results. The simulation results indicate that AWSoM+FGL successfully captures characters of both background solar wind and CME propagation.