Simulations of Tomographic Reconstruction of the 3D Coronal Electron Density with WISPR: First Results.

FRAZIN, RICHARD A.; MANCHESTER IV, WARD B.; ALBERTO M. VASQUEZ

Encuentro; Parker Solar Probe Science Working Group Meetings; 2018

Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory

In this work, we explore the capability of the WISPR instrument to be used for tomographic reconstructions. Using the latest orbital information, total brightness images for the nominal orbits 1, 12 and 24 were synthesized from steady-state three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic models. Tomographic reconstructions of the electron density of the model were attempted based on these images alone. The range of coronal heights, latitudes and longitudes that can be reconstructed changes as the perihelia get smaller. Most importantly, tomographic reconstructions for orbit 24 will be possible with data gathered over only ~ 3 days, or about 1/5 of the data-gathering time required by instruments located near 1 A.U., greatly reducing artifacts due to coronal dynamics. As a by-product of this effort, numerical tools for computing quantitative synthetic images of the WISPR instrument have been developed. These tools can be applied to either steady-state or time-dependent models, and may be useful for science planning purposes.