Exploring CME - Solar Wind Interaction in Heliosphere using SWASTi framework

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are key to solar eruptions and geomagnetic storms, heavily influenced by their interaction with solar wind streams. Accurately predicting CME trajectories and impacts hinges on understanding how they evolve within ambient solar wind. Despite numerous qualitative studies, a detailed quantitative analysis of these interactions, crucial for predicting CME behavior, remains elusive, primarily due to the challenges in isolating CMEs from the solar wind.

In the initial segment of the presentation, I'll introduce a newly developed MHD model, SWASTi, offering fresh insights into CME-SW interaction through simulation. Developed on the PLUTO code framework, SWASTi integrates a modified WSA relation for setting initial solar wind conditions and features two CME modules: a basic non-magnetized cone CME and an advanced flux rope CME. I'll also discuss a passive scalar tracing approach, developed for isolating CME structures in the heliosphere and analyzing their interactions with stream interaction regions.

Following this, I'll delve into an in-depth analysis of CME interactions with variable ambient solar wind and the resulting effects on their evolution. Our approach involves two distinct setups: the 'real case', utilizing the standard SWASTi-CME flux rope model, and the 'synthetic case', a controlled scenario with uniform solar wind speed to examine CME behavior without SIR interference. The synthetic case, acting as a benchmark, allows us to measure the impact of solar wind variability on CME characteristics, contrasting it with findings from the real case.

To conclude, the presentation will highlight our research's key outcomes, encompassing both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. These include examining the deformation of the CME front, and the evolution of thermal, kinetic, and magnetic pressures. Additionally, I will discuss the dynamic nature and implications of the drag force exerted on CMEs. We observed that the volume of CME follows a non-fractal power-law expansion over time, eventually reaching a balanced state.