The influence of Solar Orbiter/PHI far-side information on coronal holes and solar wind predictions

In this work we incorporate Solar Orbiter’s Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) Full Disc Telescope (FDT) observations into the Air Force Data Assimilative Photospheric flux Transport (ADAPT) model to construct more complete global solar photospheric maps. We feed these maps into the Wang-Sheeley-Arge (WSA) model to reconstruct the solar corona and perform solar wind simulations for a period of two months in 2024 at multi-spacecraft locations (Solar Orbiter, PSP, ACE, STEREO-A). We assess the quality of our predictions, and compare our results when no FDT data have been employed in order to understand how the addition of far side information affects the open magnetic field topologies on the Sun, their connectivity with various spacecraft of interest, the shape and structure of the heliospheric current sheet, as well as the solar wind predictions at different points in the interplanetary space. Our results demonstrate the value of incorporating far-side information in improving the heliospheric modeling and forecasting globally, as well as the significance of 4pi continuous monitoring of the Sun for more reliable space weather predictions overall.