JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. ???, XXXX, DOI:10.

1029/,

Magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the interaction between two interplanetary magnetic clouds and its consequent geoeectiveness
Ming Xiong,
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arXiv:0904.0748v1 [physics.space-ph] 5 Apr 2009

Huinan Zheng,

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S. T. Wu, Yuming Wang, and Shui Wang

Ming Xiong, Huinan Zheng, Yuming Wang, and Shui Wang, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China. ([email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; and [email protected]) S. T. Wu, Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA. ([email protected])
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Chinese Academy of Sciences Key

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Abstract.

Numerical studies of the interplanetary multiple magnetic

clouds (Multi-MC) are performed by a 2.5-dimensional ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model in the heliospheric meridional plane. Both slow MC1 and fast MC2 are initially emerged along the heliospheric equator, one after another with dierent time interval. The coupling of two MCs could be considered as the comprehensive interaction between two systems, each comprising of an MC body and its driven shock. The MC2-driven shock and MC2 body are successively involved into interaction with MC1 body. The momentum is transferred from MC2 to MC1. After the passage of MC2-driven shock front, magnetic eld lines in MC1 medium previously compressed by MC2-driven shock are prevented from being restored by the MC2 body pushLaboratory for Basic Plasma Physics, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, China
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State Key Laboratory of Space Weather,

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100080, China

Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic

Research, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, Alabama 35899, USA

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ing. MC1 body undergoes the most violent compression from the ambient solar wind ahead, continuous penetration of MC2-driven shock through MC1 body, and persistent pushing of MC2 body at MC1 tail boundary. As the evolution proceeds, the MC1 body suers from larger and larger compression, and its original vulnerable magnetic elasticity becomes stier and stier. So there exists a maximum compressibility of Multi-MC when the accumulated elasticity can balance the external compression. This cuto limit of compressibility mainly decides the maximally available geoeectiveness of MultiMC, because the geoeectiveness enhancement of MCs interacting is ascribed to the compression. Particularly, the greatest geoeectiveness is excited among all combinations of each MC helicity, if magnetic eld lines in the interacting region of Multi-MC are all southward. Multi-MC completes its nal evolutionary stage when the MC2-driven shock is merged with MC1-driven shock into a stronger compound shock. With respect to Multi-MC geoeectiveness, the evolution stage is a dominant factor, whereas the collision intensity is a subordinate one. The magnetic elasticity, magnetic helicity of each MC, and compression between each other are the key physical factors for the formation, propagation, evolution, and resulting geoeectiveness of interplanetary Multi-MC.

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1. Introduction
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Space weather refers to the conditions on the Sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere that can inuence the performance and reliability of spaceborne and ground-based technological systems or can endanger human life or health, as dened in US National Space Weather Program Implementation Plan. A seamless forecasting system for Space weather lies on the comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the Sun-Earth system. The never-stopping tremendous eorts have been made by humankind since the space age of the 1950s. A great deal of the sophisticated observations beyond the Earth are now provided, with the launching of various spacecraft into deep space, such as Yohkoh, Geotail, Wind, SOHO, Ulysses, ACE, TRACE in the 1990s, and Cluster, RHESSI, SMEI, DS, Hinode (Solar B), STEREO in the 21st century. These spacecraft missions construct an indispensable backbone in the establishment of space weather prediction system. Meanwhile, many models have been or are being developed and applied to space weather forecasting by utilizing most measurements of the above spacecraft, such as (1) HAF (Hakamada-Akasofu-Fry) [Fry et al., 2001, 2005]; (2) STOA (Shock Time of Arrival) [Smart and Shea , 1985]; (3) ISPM (Interplanetary Shock Propagation Model) [Smith and Dryer , 1990]; (4) an ensemble of HAF, STOA and ISPM models [Dryer et al., 2001, 2004; McKenna-Lawlor et al., 2006]; (5) SPM (Shock Propagation Model) [Feng and Zhao , 2006]; (6) SWMF (Space Weather Modeling Framework) [Toth et al., 2005]; (7) HHMS (Hybrid Heliospheric Modeling System) [Detman et al., 2006]; (8) a data-driven Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of the University of Alabama in Huntsville [Wu et al., 2005a, 2006a]; (9) a 3D regional combination MHD model with in-

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puts of the source surface self-consistent structure based on the observations of the solar magnetic eld and K-coronal brightness [Shen et al., 2007]; (10) A merging model of SAIC MAS and ENLIL Heliospheric MHD Model [Odstrcil et al., 2004b]; (11) an HAF + 3-D MHD model [Wu et al., 2005c, 2006c, 2007b, c], and so on. However, great challenges are still faced to improve the prediction performance of space weather, as human civilization is relying more and more on space environment [Baker , 2002; Fisher , 2004]. The interplanetary (IP) space is a pivot node of the solar-terrestrial transport chain. Solar transients, e.g., shocks and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), propagate in it, interact with it, and cause many consequences in the geo-space. Magnetic clouds (MCs) are an important subset of interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs), occupying the fraction of nearly 100% (though with low statistics) at solar minimum and 15% at solar maximum [Richardson and Cane , 2004, 2005], and have signicant geoeectiveness [Tsurutani et al., 1988; Gosling et al., 1991; Gonzalez et al., 1999; Wu and Lepping , 2002a, b; Wu et al., 2003, 2006b; Huttunen et al., 2005]. The current intense study of MCs could be traced back to the pioneer work by Burlaga et al. [1981], who rstly dened an MC with three distinct characteristics of enhanced magnetic eld strength, smooth rotation of magnetic eld vector, and low proton temperature, and described it as a ux rope structure. An MC is widely thought to be the IP manifestation of a magnetic ux rope in the solar corona, which loses equilibrium and then escapes from the solar atmosphere into the IP space [Forbes et al., 2006], with its both ends still connecting to the solar surface [Larson et al., 1997]. It is very likely for solar transients to interact with each other on their way to the Earth, especially at solar maximum when the daily occurrence rate of CMEs is about 4.3 in aver-

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age on basis of the SOHO/Lasco CME catalogue (http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME list). Some IP complicated structures were reported, such as complex ejecta [Burlaga et al., 2002], multiple MCs (Multi-MC) [Wang et al., 2002, 2003a], shock-penetrated MCs [Wang et al., 2003b; Berdichevsky et al., 2005; Collier et al., 2007], non-pressure-balanced MC boundary layer associated with magnetic reconnection [Wei et al., 2003a, b, 2006], ICMEs compressed by a following high-speed stream [Dal Lago et al., 2006], multiple shock interactions [Wu et al., 2005d, 2006d, 2007a]. However, all space-borne instruments, except the heliospheric imagers onboard SMEI and STEREO, observe either the solar atmosphere within 30 solar radii by remote sensing, or the in-situ space by local detecting, or both. Thus, numerical simulations are necessary to understand the whole IP dynamics. Below is an incomplete list of numerical studies of dynamical processes of CMEs/MCs and complex structures in the IP medium mentioned before: an individual CME/MC [Vandas et al., 1995, 1996, 2002; Groth et al., 2000; Schmidt and Cargill , 2003; Odstrcil et al., 2003, 2004a, 2005; Manchester et al., 2004; Wu et al., 2005b], the interaction of a shock wave with an MC [Vandas et al., 1997; Xiong et al., 2006a, b], the interaction of multiple shocks [Wu et al., 2004a, b, 2005d, 2006d, 2007a], and the interaction of multiple ejecta [Gonzalez-Esparza et al., 2004; Gonzalez-Esparza , 2005; Lugaz et al., 2005; Xiong et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2004, 2005b; Wu et al., 2006c, 2007c; Hayashi et al., 2006]. Therein, Wu et al. [2005d, 2006d, 2007a] performed a 1.5-D MHD model to simulate the famous Halloween 2003 epoch, in which eruption time of solar ares was used as input timing for solar disturbances to study the shock-shock interaction (and overtaking) and the matching of shock arrival time at 1 AU with observations (ACE). In addition, Wu et al. [2006c, 2007c] performed 3-D global simulations by combining two simulation models

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(HAF + 3-D MHD) to study the interacting and overtaking of two ICMEs. These observation and simulation eorts do advance our understanding of solar-terrestrial physics. The Multi-MCs have already been veried by observations to be an important IP origin for the great geomagnetic storms [Wang et al., 2002, 2003a; Xue et al., 2005; Farrugia et al., 2006; Xie et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2007]. Particularly, for the 8 extremely large geomagnetic storms with Dst 200 nT during the year 2000 2001, 2 of them were caused by Multi-MCs and one caused by shock-MC interacting structure [Xue et al., 2005]. Most recently, via summarizing the eorts of the NASA Living With a Star (LWS) Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop (CDAW) held at George Mason University, in March 2005, Zhang et al. [2007] proposed that 24 out of 88 (27%) major geomagnetic storms with Dst 100 nT from the year 1996 to 2005 were produced by multiple interacting ICMEs arising from multiple halo CMEs launched from the Sun in a short period. So the Multi-MC plays a notable role in producing large geomagnetic storms. There are two possible conditions for double-MC formation [Wang et al., 2004]: (1) The speed of following MC should be faster than that of preceding MC; (2) The separation between the eruption of two MCs should be moderate (about 12 hours based on statistics of observed events). Evolutionary signatures of ICMEs interacting are found from spacecraft observations, i.e., heating of the plasma, acceleration/deceleration of the leading/trailing ejecta, compressed eld and plasma in the leading ejecta, possible disappearance of shocks, and strengthening of the shock driven by the accelerated ejecta [Farrugia and Berdichevsky , 2004]. Previous simulations of interaction between two magnetic ux ropes in the IP space [Lugaz et al., 2005; Wang et al., 2005b], the solar corona [Schmidt and Cargill , 2004; Wang et al., 2005a; Lugaz et al., 2007], and a local homogeneous medium background [Odstrcil et al., 2003]

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only address a few typical cases in the dynamical aspect. Here a comprehensive study of many cases of MCs interacting under various conditions is carried out for better understanding of both dynamics and ensuing geoeectiveness. The interaction between two systems, each comprising of an MC and its driven shock, could be considered in some senses as a generalization of our recent studies of MC-shock interaction [Xiong et al., 2006a, b]. Thus we address the following two issues naturally: (1) What is the role of the following MC body in Multi-MC evolution in comparison with our previous studies [Xiong et al., 2006a, b] of MC-shock interaction? (2) At what evolutionary stage a Multi-MC at 1 AU reaches the maximum geoeectiveness? The above answers are explored by a 2.5-D numerical model in ideal MHD process. The force-free magnetic ux rope models have been proven to be very valuable to interpret in-situ observations of MCs [e.g., Lundquist , 1950; Burlaga , 1988; Farrugia et al., 1993; Chen , 1996; Owens et al., 2006]. Particularly, Lundquist model [Lundquist , 1950] is adopted in our model to describe the magnetic eld conguration of an MC, as widely applied in the space science literature [e.g., Vandas et al., 1995, 1996; Wang et al., 2002, 2003d, 2005b; Xiong et al., 2006a, b]. A following fast MC overtaking and interacting a preceding slow one in the IP space could result in a Multi-MC structure [Wang et al., 2002, 2003a]. In order to explore the basic physics process of Multi-MC, we make the following assumptions to simplify the complex circumstance of double-MC structure in the numerical MHD simulation: (1) two MCs axes parallel or anti-parallel with each other; (2) their axes are both within the ecliptic plane and perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line; (3) each MC is symmetric in the azimuth direction of the heliosphere, and considered as an ideal loop encompassing the Sun; (4) magnetic reconnection does not exist in

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double MC interacting; (5) both MCs have the same size, mass, magnetic eld strength, and plasma . Thus, two MCs in our model only dier in magnetic helicity sign Hmc and initial radial lift-o speed vmc . A parametric study of Hmc and vmc is focused in our model for the very specialized Multi-MC structure. Since the two MCs are very alike except Hmc and vmc , they could be, to some extent, considered to be identical. MC1 and MC2 are respectively used to label the two MCs launched from the Sun, one after another. Because an MC boundary is a self-enclosed magnetic surface, and two MCs magnetic eld lines would not blend under the condition of the strictly ideal MHD process, the sub-structures of double MCs, corresponding to the previously separated MC1 and MC2 before collision, could be easily dierentiated, and accordingly named as sub-MC1 and sub-MC2. The goal of the present work is to conduct a systematic investigation of Multi-MC in the IP space. We give a brief description of the numerical MHD model in Section 2, describe the dynamical behavior of MC-MC interaction in Section 3, discuss the consequent geoeectiveness in Section 4, analyze the compressibility of MC-MC collision in Section 5, and summarize the paper in Section 6.

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2. Numerical MHD Model

The Multi-MC simulation is accommodated by a few slight modications from our previous numerical model for MC-shock interaction [Xiong et al., 2006a, b]. These modications are as follows, (1) The top boundary of simulated domain is extended from 300 to 400 Rs ; (2) The following shock is replaced by a following MC; (3) The initial speed vmc , emergence time tmc , and magnetic helicity Hmc out of all input parameters for each sub-MC of Multi-MC are independently selected to make various combinations for parametric study shown in Table 2. First, the propagation through the IP space is

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modeled by numerical simulation. Then, the geomagnetic storm excited by the solar windmagnetosphere-ionosphere coupling is approximated by an empirical formula of Burton
dDst(t) dt (t) = Q(t) Dst [Burton et al., 1975]. Here the coupling function Q = vr Min(Bz , 0)

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and the diusion time scale = 8 hours, with the radial solar wind speed and south-north magnetic eld component respectively denoted by vr and Bz . Burton model [Burton et al., 1975] for geomagnetic disturbance has been analyzed and validated [Wang et al., 2003d; Wang , 2003e], and applied in Dst evaluation [Wang et al., 2003d; Wang , 2003e; Xiong et al., 2006a, b]. Thus the physical process of cause-eect transport chain for solar disturbances is fully described in our model. Moreover, the MC2-driven shock in all of our simulation cases is faster than the local magnetosonic speed all the way, and strong enough so that it would not be dissipated in the low MC1 medium [Xiong et al., 2006a, b].

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3. MC1-MC2 Interaction
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All 48 simulation cases of MC1-MC2 coupling are assorted into 4 groups in Table 2, with 18 cases of individual MC in 2 groups of Table 1 for comparison. Here, IM, EID, CID respectively stand for Indiviual MC, Eruption Interval Dependence, Collision Intensity Dependence, with the subscripts 1 and 2 denoting the sign of magnetic helicity. Case C1 is shared by Groups EID1 and CID1 , and Case C2 by Groups EID2 and CID2 . In our simulation, an MC with southward/northward magnetic eld in its rear half is dened to have positive/negative helicity. Both MCs are associated with positive helicities in Groups EID1 and CID1 , meanwhile MC1 and MC2 are respectively associated with positive and negative helicities in Groups EID2 and CID2 . The numerical simulation is performed in the ideal MHD process. The articial numerical magnetic reconnection between MCs is strictly ruled out by a specic numerical

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technique [c.f. Hu et al., 2003]. Thus the dynamics in Groups IM1 , EID1 , and CID1 is nearly the same as that in Groups IM2 , EID2 , and CID2 respectively, whereas the geoeffectiveness is highly dierent due to the reversed north and south magnetic components within the cloud with opposite helicity. Moreover, by changing Dt (Dt = tmc2 tmc1 , tmc1 = 0 hour), the initiation delay between a preceding MC of 400 km/s and a following MC of 600 km/s in Groups EID1 and EID2 , the Multi-MC formed by the MC1 and MC2 may reach dierent evolutionary stages on its arrival at 1 AU. Therefore the eruption interval dependence for MC1-MC2 interaction is easily discriminated by a comparative study. Similarly, collision intensity dependence is also explored by a parametric study of vmc2 from 450 to 1200 km/s in Groups CID1 and CID2 . Meanwhile the full interaction between sub-clouds within 1 AU to maximally highlight collision eect is guaranteed by tmc2 = 12.2 hours in Groups CID1 and CID2 . Furthermore, an individual MC with its speed from 400 to 1200 km/s in Groups IM1 and IM2 supplements indispensably to other Groups for the study of coupling eect of two MCs. Cases B1 and B2 with tmc2 = 30.1 hours, C1 and C2 with tmc2 = 12.2 hours, are typical examples of Multi-MC in the early and late evolutionary stages respectively, which are addressed below in details. 3.1. Case B1

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In Case B1 , we discuss the results of MC1-MC2 interaction for eruption speed vmc1 = 400 km/s, vmc2 = 600 km/s, and initiation delay tmc2 = 30.1 hours. Figure 1 shows the successive behavior of MC1-MC2 interaction of Case B1 . The magnetic eld lines, among which two are enclosed white solid lines marking the boundaries of MC1 and MC2 respectively, are superimposed on each color-lled contour image, and two radial proles, one through the equator (noted by Lat. = 0 ), the other through 4.5 southward (white

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dashed lines in the images, noted by Lat. = 4.5 S), are plotted below. One can read the global vision from the images and local details from the proles simultaneously for the propagation and evolution of Multi-MC. For better highlighting the local disturbance, Figures 1(a)-(c) show the magnitude B of magnetic eld from which the initial value B |t=0 is deducted. Two identical MCs are successively injected into the IP space with dierent initial eruption speed. As long as the fast following MC2 lags behind the slow preceding MC1, each of them behaves as an individual event, and satises the criteria of a single MC. Because the MC-driven shock and incidental shock [Xiong et al., 2006a] both propagate along the heliospheric current sheet (HCS) in the IP medium, their inherent traits are identically characterized by a concave-outward morphology with the position of the strongest intensity being roughly 4.5 away from the HCS. MC2-driven shock just approaches MC1 body tail at 46.5 hours, as seen from Figure 1(d). Across this shock front, radial speed vr increases abruptly from 440 km/s at MC1 tail to 670 km/s at MC2 head. From then on, MC2 and MC1 will directly collide to form a special IP complex named Multi-MC by Wang et al. [2002, 2003a], and their evolution will be coupled with each other. Consequently, the characteristic parameters of each sub-MC would change drastically due to the non-linear interaction. At 56.1 hours, MC2-driven shock front has already entered MC1 body across which radial speed vr abruptly jumps from 445 to 620 km/s, but MC2 body is still unable to catch up with MC1 tail (Figure 1(e)) because of tmc2 = 30.1 hours. The dynamic response of Multi-MC at this snapshot is merely ascribed to the interaction between MC2-driven shock and MC1 body. So the preceding MC1 behavior in Figures 1(b), (e), and (h) are similar to its counterpart of MC-shock interaction in essence [c.f. Figures 3(c), (f), and (i) in Xiong et al., 2006a].

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Large compression within MC1 medium downstream of MC2-driven shock front is very pronounced from an abnormal local spike-like structure of cf along Lat. = 4.5 S, as shown in Figure 1(h). The orientation of magnetic eld lines is also rotated in MC1 medium swept by the shock front. As the shock continuously advances into MC1 body, the morphology of MC1 rear part is transformed from an original rough semi-circle (Figure 1(d)) to a Vshape with a wide open mouth (Figure 1(f)). Moreover MC2 body has already contacted MC1 tail at the bottom of so-called V shape along the equator at 80.7 hours, when the MC2-driven shock cannibalizes the rear half of MC1 body (Figure 1(f)). Since then, MC2 body is directly involved into interaction with MC1 body. The Multi-MC evolution has reached a new critical stage, for MC1 will undergoes the most violent compression from the ambient solar wind ahead, continuous penetration of MC2-driven shock through MC1 body, and persistent pushing of MC2 body at MC1 tail boundary. In Figure 1(f), nearly constant speed in MC1 rear half and large speed dierence with 80 km/s across MC1 rear boundary along the equator imply continuous strike of high-speed MC2 body upon preceding MC1 body. Besides, the interplanetary magnetic eld (IMF) within Multi-MC envelope is highly bending just behind MC2-driven shock front (Figures 1(c), (f), and (i)), as a result of rotation across the shock front and draping around either sub-cloud surface. The in-situ observation along Lat. = 4.5 S by a hypothetical spacecraft at Lagrangian point (L1) is illustrated in Figure 2. With each sub-MC boundary identied as dashed lines, the MC1 duration of 18 hours is much less than MC2 duration of 26 hours due to the compression in MC1 rear half accompanying with MC2-driven shock advancing. The MC2 senses the existence of preceding MC1, though its response is much less sensitive. The location of maximum bulk ow speed vr in MC2 body is shifted by 6 hours later (Figure

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2(c)) from MC2 head [c.f. Figure 2 in Xiong et al., 2006a], between which magnitude B is obviously enhanced (Figure 2(a)). The dawn-dusk electric eld V Bz is calculated by the product of vr and B in the spherical geometry of this simulation. Beginning from 74 hours, V Bz , negative in MC1 rear half, positive in MC2 front half, and negative again in MC2 rear half (Figure 2(d)), is respectively responsible for Dst dropping from 0 nT at 74 hours to 140 nT at 82 hours, recovering from 140 nT at 82 hours to 25 nT at 97 hours, and dropping again from 25 nT at 97 hours to 75 nT at 114 hours (Figure 2(e)). Owing to compression of southward magnetic component Bs (Bs = Min(B , 0)) within MC1 rear part, the rst Dst dip with 140 nT is much lower than the second one with 75 nT for geomagnetic storm. Particularly, the two Dst dips are separated by only 32 hours, because the geoeectiveness of two IP triggers (MC1 and MC2) are superposed together. The idea of a two-ejecta event associated with a two-step geomagnetic storm was recently proposed and veried by Farrugia et al. [2006] on basis of observation. Hence the association of two Dst dips lies in the MC1-MC2 interaction. 3.2. Case C1

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In order to realize the fully interaction between MC1 and MC2 before their arrival at L1, tmc2 , the emergence time of MC2, is scheduled earlier to be 12.2 hours with both MCs having the same speeds of Case B1 . Only the evolution of vr is given in Figure 3 to visualize multi-cloud structure. Comparing to that in Figures 1(c), (f), and (i), the so-called V-shape morphology of MC1 rear half becomes very at under the pounding of very high-speed MC2 body at 19.5 hours as Multi-MC evolution proceeds, as shown in Figure 3(a). As a result, contact position between MC1 and MC2 body is extended from one single point at the HCS (Figure 1(f)) to a straight line between Lat. = 4.5 S and

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4.5 N (Figure 3(a)). The MC1s magnetic elasticity seems to be too vulnerable to resist the violent collision from MC2 body. The collision eciently transfers the radial momentum from the fast following MC2 to the slow preceding MC1. It results in monotonically decreasing vr from the head to tail of Multi-MC at 53.3 hours, resembling a single MC, as seen in Figure 3(c). Besides, MC2 morphology turns from a radial-extent-elongated ellipse (Figure 3(a)) to an angular-extent-elongated one (Figure 3(c)) due to the blocking of MC1 body ahead. MC2 body is also compressed radially to some extent. Certainly, the compression of MC2 body is much less than that of MC1 body. Moreover, MC2driven shock ultimately penetrates the MC1 body (Figure 3(c)), and will merge with the MC1-driven shock into a stronger compound shock, which is consistent with the previous results of double MC interaction [Odstrcil et al., 2003; Lugaz et al., 2005]. Therefore the Multi-MC has nearly been completing its nal evolutionary stage at 53.3 hours, after which the Multi-MC will move forwards as a relatively stable structure. Time sequence of hypothetical measurement at L1 for Case C1 is shown in Figure 4. The MC2-driven shock just emerges from MC1 body after penetrating it, so no extremum of speed prole vr is found inside the multi-cloud. Double dips of Dst index are 93 nT and 95 nT, increased by 47 nT and decreased by 20 nT respectively in contrast with those in Case B1 in Figure 2(e). The mitigation of geoeectiveness for the rst Dst dip is owing to the position of MC2-driven shock front far away from the rear part of MC1 with southward magnetic component, the aggravation for the second Dst dip is ascribed to the MC2 body compression mentioned above. A peak of V Bz up to 14 mV/m can be seen near the MC1 front boundary, where the largest compression occurs. However, it is positive and makes no contribution to geoeectiveness. Additionally, the durations of

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MC1 and MC2 are shortened by 4.7 and 3 hours, respectively, as compared with those in Case B1 . Figure 5 shows the time-dependent parameters of Multi-MC Case C1 (thick curves), where the dotted, dashed, and dotted vertical lines from left to right denote the occasion of MC2-driven shock encountering MC1 body tail, MC2 body hitting MC1 body tail, and MC2-driven shock reaching MC1 body head, respectively. Two corresponding isolated MC cases are superimposed as thin curves for comparison. The acceleration of MC1 is large and early, while the deceleration of MC2 is small and late, as seen from Figure 5(a). The radial compression of MC2 body brings not only the shortening of its radial span Sr but also the stretching of its angular span S. The behavior of MC1 is a bit more complex. In our previous studies of MC-shock interaction [Xiong et al., 2006a, b], MC compressed morphology will be restored after the shock passage. However, in the presence of the following MC2 bodys pushing eect for Multi-MC case, MC2 body will take over the role of suppressing MC1s inherent magnetic elasticity when MC2-driven shock moves farther. Thus the rm gripping of MC1 body at all time leads to signicant shrinking of its volume. It is why cross section area of MC1 body is smaller than that of MC2 (Figure 5(d)). Particularly, as seen from the local minimum value of Sr at 30 hours in Figure 5(b), the compression of MC1s Sr reaches to its extreme when the MC2-driven shock nearly arrives at MC1 head boundary. Meanwhile the temporarily enhanced S of MC1 during 24 38 hours is steadily reduced afterwards (Figure 5(c)). 3.3. MC2 Helicity Role

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geoeectiveness is positive helicity for preceding MC1 (Hmc1 = 1) and negative helicity for following MC2 (Hmc2 = 1) [Wang et al., 2004]. According to this scenario [Wang et al., 2004], simulation cases B2 and C2 are run simply by reversing MC2 helicity in Cases B1 and C1 , respectively. The in-situ record of passage of multi-cloud event at L1 is shown in Figure 6, with Columns (A) and (B) corresponding to Cases B2 and C2 , respectively. In contrast to Figures 2 and 4, the elevation angle of magnetic eld vector within the double-ux-rope structure in Figure 6 is changed from the north-south-north-south orientation to north-south-south-north one. Though two Dst dips exist in Groups EID2 and CID2 , close scrutiny reveals that (1) the recovery phase of the rst trivial Dst dip is extremely short (3.3 and 0.9 hours in Cases B2 and C2 , respectively); (2) the second Dst dip is low enough to describe the whole geoeectiveness by its local minimum, with 166 nT at 90 hours in Case B2 and 144 nT at 78 hours in Case C2 . Hence from the perspective of continuous interval with southward magnetic eld Bs , Dst curve in Groups EID2 and CID2 can be considered as a one-dip structure by ignoring the rst trivial dip. The closer the distance between two sources of IP geoeective trigger, the easier is the superposition of individual geoeectiveness, the greater is the resulting geomagnetic storm. This is conrmed by contrast of Figures 6(c) and (f) with Figures 2(e) and 4(e).

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Near-HCS latitudinal dependence of the Dst index is plotted in Figure 7, where Columns (A) DstP 1 and (B) DstP 2 represent the rst and the second Dst dips in Cases B1 and C1 , meanwhile Column (C) DstN depicts the single Dst dip in Cases B2 and C2 . The dashed and dash-dotted lines represent for Cases B1 and C1 , respectively, in Columns (A) and (B). And they represent for Cases B2 and C2 , respectively, in Column (C). As

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the MC2-driven shock continues to propagate through the MC1 medium, DstP 1 increases within Lat. > 1.3 and decreases within Lat. < 1.3 , found in Figure 7(A). Meanwhile the distribution of DstN in Figure 7(C) is quite similar. The trend of decreased Dst near HCS is opposite to that in the case of MC-shock interaction [c.f. Figure 8 in Xiong et al., 2006a]. The above divergence is claried by the absence of following MC body pushing in MC-shock interaction [Xiong et al., 2006a]. First, the latitudinal extent of MC2 body is much narrower than that of MC2-driven shock. Second, the coalescent boundary between MC1 and MC2 body is further narrower, which covers latitude range between 4.5 S and 4.5 N (Figure 3(c)). Thus the MC2 body pushing eect is strongest at the equator, within conned latitudinal extent between 4.5 S and 4.5 N. The near-HCS geoeectiveness of DstP 1 from Case B1 to Case C1 , DstN from Case B2 to Case C2 is subsequently aggravated. As a result, nonuniform latitudinal distribution of DstP 1 and DstN is intensied. Besides, DstP 2 is nearly unaected in Case B1 . However DstP 2 in Case C1 is obviously decreased, as a result from the compression of MC2 body interpreted in Section 3.2. Hence the geoeectiveness of Multi-MC is indeed largely enhanced due to interaction between sub-clouds, as compared with that in an isolated MC event. In order to quantify the evolution process of Multi-Cloud, d0 = rmc2 rmc1 , the distance between the cores of MC2 and MC1 on the occasion of MC1 head just reaching L1, is chosen as an indicative parameter. rmc1 and rmc2 are the core positions of MC1 and MC2 in radial direction respectively. The reliance of several multi-cloud parameters on d0 is further explored in Figure 8 by the integrated study of Groups EID1 and EID2 . The absolute value of d0 is labeled as |d0 |. As Dt, the emergence interval of MC1 and MC2, decreases, |d0 | rstly reduces from 107 to 53 Rs at a constant slope, then asymptotically

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approaches to 42 Rs shortly after MC2-driven shock emerges from MC1 body head (Figure 8(a)). The penetration depth of MC2-driven shock in MC1 medium, dDst , dened by the radial distance between MC2-driven shock front and MC1 inner boundary along the equator, is shown in Figure 8(b), which can be divided into four stages according to the dierent behaviors: (1) a rapid increase during d0 < 66.3Rs , (2) an extremely slow increase during 66.3Rs < d0 < 52.5Rs , (3) a fast re-increase during 52.5Rs < d0 < 46.7Rs , (4) a very small oscillation around the nal limit value of 40 Rs during d0 > 46.7Rs . The rapid increasing of dDst in stages (1) and (3) is straightforward due to continuous forward movement of shock front in MC1 medium. As for stage (2) during which the shock front hits MC1 core, though the shock front location relative to the MC1 body is deeper and deeper at that time, the abrupt change of MC1 rear boundary morphology from a V-shape to a straight line, mentioned in Section 3.2, greatly reduces the radial extent of MC1 rear half, and hence signicantly inhibits the increase of the absolute value of penetration depth dDst . When the shock front crosses the MC1 front boundary (d0 > 46.7Rs ), the magnetic tension of the highly compressed MC1 body is drastically accumulated. As a result, the nearer the distance between two sub-MCs is (the shorter the |d0 | is), the larger is the resistance of MC1 elasticity against compression. The nal equilibrium is naturally manifested in the behavior of stage (4). The early and sensitive response of Max.(Bmc1 ) at d0 = 100Rs is conspicuous along Lat. = 4.5 in Figure 8(c), because the initial interaction between MC1 body and MC2-driven shock happens around Lat. = 4.5 . The swift enhancement of Max.(Bmc1 ) during 68.9Rs < d0 < 46.7Rs along Lat. = 0 is owing to the compression concurrently exerted by the MC2-driven

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shock and MC2 body. Both Max.(Bmc1 ) and Max.(Bmc2 ) reach a relatively stable state when |d0 | = 42Rs . The variance of geoeectiveness as a function of d0 is elucidated in Figure 9. The analyses on DstP 1, DstP 2 , and DstN are addressed one by one. First, when d0 < 60Rs , the behavior of all parameters in Figures 9(a)-(d) for DstP 1 is pretty coincident with that of our previous study for MC-shock interaction [c.f. Figures 9(b)-(e) in Xiong et al., 2006a]. The dynamics of MC1-MC2 merging at that time is dominated by the interaction between MC2-driven shock and MC1 body. Thus MC2-driven shock plays the similar role of the incidental shock as addressed before [Xiong et al., 2006a], which claries the above-mentioned coincidence. As |d0| is reduced from 60Rs to 52.5Rs , MC2 body directly collides with MC1 body. It leads to the decrease of Dst, Min.(V Bz ), and Min.(Bs ) due to compression. Particularly, the decrease of Min.(V Bz ) and Min.(Bs ) along Lat. = 4.5 S is very drastic, because the change of MC1 eld line morphology from a V-shape to a straight line mentioned in Section 3.2 leads to the southward rotation of magnetic eld within MC1 rear half along Lat. = 4.5 S. This additional rotation eect further strengthens Bs along Lat. = 4.5 S. When |d0| continues to decrease to be less than 52.5Rs , signicant dierence of geoeectiveness between Lat. = 0 and 4.5 S occurs. Along Lat. = 4.5 S, the rapid recovery of Min.(Bs ) from 24.5 to 13.5 nT, and Min.(V Bz ) from 15 to 8 mV/m, leads to the subdued DstP 1 from its minimum 165 to 100 nT. Contrarily, the geoeectiveness along Lat. = 0 remain unchanged (Figures 9(a)-(d)). Namely, the aggravated geoeectiveness along the equator is the same with DstP 1 = 180 nT, provided that |d0 | is smaller than a certain threshold of 52.5 Rs . This highly nonuniform latitudinal distribution of DstP 1 is owing to the limited latitudinal range

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(4.5 S 4.5 N) of pushing eect of MC2 body. When the shock ultimately penetrates MC1 body, the persistent pushing of following MC2 body within 4.5 S 4.5 N can prevent the previously compressed magnetic eld lines of MC1 body from being relaxed. So DstP 1 along Lat. = 0 is nearly constant for |d0| < 52.5Rs . As for DstP 1 along Lat. = 4.5 S, it increases as a result of relaxation of magnetic tension without MC2 body pushing. Second, the variance of DstP 2 (geoeectiveness of sub-MC2) only happens between d0 = 68Rs and 46.7Rs , during which the MC2 body compression due to the blocking of MC1 body takes eect. Before the involving of MC2 body into interaction (d0 < 68Rs ), or after the completion of Multi-MCs drastic evolution stage (d0 > 46.7Rs ), DstP 2 is unchanged. By comparison DstP 2 with DstP 1 , one can see that the MC1 undergoes the greater compression than the MC2. Third, the behavior of DstN (Figures 9(i)-(l)) is quite similar to that of DstP 1 (Figures 9(a)-(d)) due to similar reasons mentioned above. The minimum Dst in Figures 9(a), (e), and (i) is 180, 130, and 235 nT, respectively. The greatest geoeectiveness of DstN directly results from the longest t (Figure 9(k)). Therefore, the geoeective parameters of every sub-MC are dramatically changed in contrast with those of the corresponding isolated MC during the merging process. For the IP compound structure formed by multiple ICMEs, the geoeectiveness is jointly determined by two factors: the parameters of the individual ICMEs themselves, and the interaction process between these ICMEs. This is substantiated by the observation data analyses [Wang et al., 2002, 2003a; Xue et al., 2005; Farrugia et al., 2006; Zhang et al., 2007] and our quantitative investigation of numerical simulation of this study. The Multi-Cloud geoeectiveness depends on not only the MC1-MC2 eruption interval, but also collision intensity. Obviously, an MC1 overtaken by an MC2 with various initial

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speeds may result in dierent geoeectiveness. From the Figure 9 concerning Groups EID1 and EID2 , two basic results are obtained: (1) The maximum geoeectiveness occurs at Lat. = 0 for the same propagation direction of MC1 and MC2 along the equator; (2) The nal Dst at Lat. = 0 is nearly constant, provided the accompanying |d0| is suciently small (|d0 | 46.7Rs ), or the initial MC1-MC2 eruption interval is suciently short (Dt 20 hours). With tmc2 designated to be 12.2 hours, the reliance of geoeectiveness along the equator on collision degree is further explored in Figure 10 by parametric study of variable vmc2 . The larger the value of vmc2 is, the greater is the collision degree that the Multi-MC may suer from. DstP 1 only decreases a bit from 180 to 210 nT within such a wide spectrum of vmc2 from 450 to 1200 km/s. The geoeectiveness enhancement of MultiMC is ascribed to compression between the sub-MCs. When the MC1 compression has already approached to saturation, the eect to increase MC1 geoeectiveness by having MC1 impinged by a highly fast MC2 is extremely limited. It is more and more dicult to quench the dramatically accumulated magnetic elasticity of MC1 body, as MC1 undergoes the greater and greater compression. The impact of the high-speed MC2 body is largely oset by the buer action of magnetic tension of the MC1 body. As for DstP 2 , the increase of vmc2 has a direct inuence. However, DstP 2 deducted by the Dst of the corresponding individual MC2 event is roughly constant, which can be seen from Figure 10(b). Namely DstP 2 decreases from 125 to 190 nT, as vmc2 increases from 450 to 1200 km/s, chiey ascribed to the increase of geoeectiveness of the corresponding individual MC2 event itself, but not MC1-MC2 interaction. Excluding the geoeectiveness increase of individual MC2 event, DstN still decreases for vmc2 > 1000 km/s in Figure 10(c), because interaction takes obvious eect herein. The geoeectiveness variance can be elucidated from the

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perspective of dynamic response of sub-MCs. The double-MC interacting region is within MC1 rear part and MC2 front part, where the direct compression occurs. So the factor of MC1-MC2 interaction for geomagnetic storm enhancement is strongest for DstN , weakest for DstP 2 . In conclusion, two points can be drawn from Figures 9 and 10: (1) The signicant geoeectiveness variance accompanies the dierent evolution stages; (2) Once a Multi-MC completes its evolution process before its arrival at 1 AU, the collision intensity between sub-MCs merely modulates the nal geoeectiveness a bit. The innate magnetic elasticity can buer the reciprocal collision between sub-MCs against each other. When every sub-MC becomes stier and stier, the compression reaches its asymptotic degree, and the geoeectiveness enhancement becomes less and less obvious. Therefore, with respect to Multi-MC geoeectiveness, the evolution stage is a dominant factor, whereas the collision intensity is a subordinate one. Additionally, the dependence of geoeectiveness of an individual MC on the eruption speed vmc is also revealed from the isolated MC2 events from Figure 10. If Bs region in MC medium is located in its anterior half (Group IM2 ), Dst steadily decreases as vmc increases, as seen by the thin solid line in Figure 10(C); Contrarily, if Bs region is to be in the rear half of MC (Group IM1 ), Dst only decreases on the condition of vmc > 800 km/s, as seen by the solid line in Figure 10(B). The increase of vmc leads to a more violent interaction of individual MC body with the ambient solar wind ahead. As a result, MC core, initially located at the geometry center of MC boundary, will be gradually shifted to MC anterior boundary. MC anterior half is preferential compressed, because MC-ambient ow interaction originates from MC front boundary. The compression exists in MC rear half, only when the whole cross section area of MC body is signicantly contracted on the

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condition of very fast speed vmc . This is why Dst for Group IM1 remains a constant of 100 nT within vmc = 450 800 km/s.

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The idea that the compression is an ecient mechanism to enhance the geoeectiveness of the pre-existing Bs event has been proved in data analyses [Wang et al., 2003c]. Compression eect is virtually responsible for the geoeective property of Multi-MC. So it is very meaningful to analyze the maximum compression degree for a Multi-MC. The Multi-MC characteristics can be inferred from several parameters of near-Earth measurements, depicted by Figure 11. The interchange of momentum between the preceding slow cloud MC1 and following fast cloud MC2 leads to MC1 acceleration and MC2 deceleration, which inuences, more or less, the Sun-Earth transient time, T Tmc1 and T Tmc2 for MC1 and MC2, respectively. The shortening of T Tmc1 begins at Dt = 21 hours as seen from Figure 11(a), meanwhile the lengthening of T Tmc2 begins at Dt = 28 hours, seen from Figure 11(b). The MC1 acceleration is very obvious, as the larger vmc2 is, the smaller is T Tmc1 (Figure 11(g)). Contrarily, the MC2 slowdown is independent of vmc2 , as T Tmc2 in coupled events deviates from that in the corresponding isolated events by a constant (Figure 11(h)). The eect of T Tmc1 decrease is much greater than that of T Tmc2 increase for Multi-MC cases. Since the transporting time of an ICME may be modied if it interacts with others during its IP propagation, some empirical formulas of transporting time on basis of observations of one single ejecta event [Gopalswamy et al., 2000, 2001a] can not be directly applied to the ICME-ICME interaction cases [Farrugia and Berdichevsky , 2004; Wang et al., 2005b; Xiong et al., 2005]. Coupling between ICMEs occupies a large fraction for the causes of great geomagnetic storms [Xue et al., 2005; Zhang et al., 2007],

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the Multi-MC should be paid special attention for space weather predicting. Thus the numerical simulation based on physics models is very useful to forecast the arrival time of the interacting ICMEs. The duration of sub-MC passage at L1, Tmc , is a distinct reection of compression eect. Tmc1 exists a lower limit, as shown in Figure 11(c), so does Tmc2 in Figure 11(d). When the Multi-MC experiences the sucient evolution for Dt < 24 hours, the reduction of Tmc1 and Tmc2 is 14 and 4.5 hours respectively, in contrast with the corresponding isolated sub-MC cases. As vmc2 increases, both Tmc1 and Tmc2 monotonically decrease. However, the solid and dashed lines, representing the Multi-MC and corresponding isolated MC events in Figure 11(j), intersect at vmc2 = 1040 km/s. Tmc2 in MC1-MC2 interaction is determined by two factors: (1) the compression of MC2 radial extent resulting from collision; (2) the slowdown of MC2 body as a result of momentum transfer from MC2 to MC1 body. The rst factor, tending to shorten Tmc2 , dominates the cases for vmc2 < 1040 km/s; the second factor, trending to lengthen Tmc2 , dominates the cases for vmc2 > 1040 km/s. Besides, the near-Earth radial span of MC1 body Srmc1 in Figures 11(e) and (k) has the similar variance trend as Tmc1 in Figures 11(c) and (i). It again proves that the compression has saturation eect for MC1 body. The Srmc1 of 67 Rs in an individual case can be compressed to 40 Rs at most by Dt reduction (Figure 11(e)). Srmc1 decreases very slowly from 43 Rs at vmc2 = 450 km/s to 25 Rs at vmc2 = 1200 km/s (Figure 11(k)). Moreover, the overall compression degree for a Multi-MC is well described by d0 , the distance between the core of the following MC2 and preceding MC1 on the occasion of MC1 head just reaching L1. One can see that d0 variance is associated with Multi-MC evolution stages (Figure 11(f)). The swiftly reducing trend of |d0 | at the beginning is suddenly stopped at Dt = 25 hours. |d0 | reaches

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its lower limit of 42 Rs at Dt = 17 hours, and maintains a horizontal slope afterwards. When the inherent magnetic tension rivals the external compression for force balance, each sub-MC behaves like a rigid body with a little elasticity. |d0 | is only reduced from 43 to 30 Rs over such a wide vmc2 range from 450 to 1200 km/s (Figure 11(l)). The compression due to interaction is primarily responsible for geoeectiveness enhancement, once two MCs form a Multi-MC. Assuming nonexistence of magnetic eld in the IP medium and all ejecta, the preceding ejecta may be exorbitantly compressed to an unbelievably small scale by the following ejecta [Gonzalez-Esparza et al., 2004; Gonzalez-Esparza , 2005]. Obviously the compressibility on basis of hydrodynamic nature [Gonzalez-Esparza et al., 2004; Gonzalez-Esparza , 2005] is overestimated due to ignoring of magnetic elasticity. The larger the compression is, the stier is every sub-MC body. Hence a cuto compression degree exists because of magnetic tension. Besides, if the helicity of MC1 is consistent with that of MC2, a electric current sheet occurs between the adjoining boundary of MC1 and MC2 due to magnetic eld direction reversion. The electric current intensity synchronously increases with the Multi-MC compression. If magnetic reconnection happens there, the MC1-MC2 collision eect would be weakened. As a result, the outermost part of magnetic eld lines of each sub-MC would be reconnected together [Wang et al., 2005b]. Particularly in the condition of large speed dierence between MC1 and MC2, both MCs may be merged into one new magnetic ux rope by the driven magnetic reconnection [Odstrcil et al., 2003; Schmidt and Cargill , 2004; Wang et al., 2005a]. The magnetic reconnection reduces Multi-MCs cuto compression degree. If magnetic reconnection is introduced into Groups EID1 and CID1 of Table 2, the MultiMC geoeectiveness would become weakening due to the subdued compression and south

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magnetic component annihilation. However, magnetic diusion in the IP space should be very small, magnetic reconnection may sightly modulate, but not signicantly distort the dynamics and geoeectiveness of Multi-MC in the framework of ideal MHD process. So the CME-CME cannibalization, rstly observed in the inner corona by the SOHO/Lasco [Gopalswamy et al., 2001b], later proved to be caused by magnetic reconnection [Wang et al., 2005a], may not occur in the IP space [Wang et al., 2005b].

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6. Conclusions and Summary

In order to better understand the nature of IP Multi-MC structure, the interaction between two IP MCs (MC1 and MC2), and the ensuing geoeectiveness are explored under a very simplied and specialized circumstance by a 2.5-dimensional ideal MHD numerical model. This work is a continuation to our recent studies of MC-shock interaction [Xiong et al., 2006a, b] by replacing a following incidental strong shock with a following fast MC. Via analyses of a comprehensive integration of many simulation cases under various conditions, it is found that the magnetic elasticity, magnetic helicity of each MC, and compression between each other are the overriding physical factors in the formation, propagation, evolution, and resulting geoeectiveness of IP Multi-MC. First, the dynamical response of MCs colliding is studied. The coupling of two MCs could be considered as the comprehensive interaction between two systems, each comprising of an MC body and its driven shock. Because the following MC2 is faster than the preceding MC1, the MC2-driven shock and MC2 body successively impact the rear boundary of MC1 body. As a result, the morphology of magnetic eld lines at MC1s rear part is consequently changed from its initial rough semi-circle to a V-shape, and then to a at line. As swept by the marching MC2-driven shock front, the local mag-

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netic eld lines in MC1 medium just downstream of MC2-driven shock front would be compressed and rotated. The pushing of MC2 body prevents the previously compressed magnetic eld in MC1 medium from being restored, after the passage of MC2-driven shock front. MC1 body undergoes the most violent compression from the ambient solar wind ahead, continuous penetration of MC2-driven shock through MC1 body, and persistent pushing of MC2 body at MC1 tail boundary, which leads to a signicant shrinking of MC1s cross section. Contrarily, the blocking of MC1 body also results in the change of MC2 boundary from a radial-extent-elongated ellipse to an angular-extent-elongated one. The Momentum is continuously transferred from sub-MC2 to sub-MC1, until the radial prole of Multi-MC speed is monotonically decreasing with the maximum value at MC1driven sheath. When MC2-driven shock is merged with MC1-driven shock into a stronger compound shock, Multi-MC completes its ultimate evolutionary stage, and hence moves forward as a relatively stable entity. Second, the geoeectiveness of MCs coupling is explored. The interaction of MC1 and MC2 in the IP space results in the superposing of their geoeectiveness. The twoMC event is associated with a two-step geomagnetic storm, as indicated by two Dst dips. Particularly, if Bs region in a Multi-MC is located at MC1 rear half and MC2 anterior half, the Multi-MC excites the greatest geomagnetic storm among all combinations of each subMC helicity, and two Dst dips can be nearly reduced to a single Dst dip due to ignoring of the very short recovery phase of the rst Dst dip. The geoeectiveness of each individual MC is largely enhanced as a result of MC1-MC2 interaction. Moreover, because latitudinal extent of MC body is much narrower than that of its driven shock, the eect of MC2 body pushing upon MC1 body is limited within a very narrow latitudinal band centered at the

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heliospheric equator. Outside this latitudinal band, geoeectiveness is initially enhanced and then recovered, as the emergence interval of two MCs becomes shorter and shorter; meanwhile the geoeectiveness is rstly aggravated and then maintains constant inside this band. Obviously, the nonuniform latitudinal distribution of geoeectiveness is further intensied by MC2 body pushing. Moreover, With respect to Multi-MC geoeectiveness, the evolution stage is a dominant factor, whereas the collision intensity is a subordinate one. Third, Multi-MCs compressibility associated with magnetic elasticity is analyzed. Both compression degree and evolutionary stage of a Multi-MC could be quantitatively described by |d0 |, the absolute distance between MC1 and MC2 core on the occasion of MC1 head just reaching L1. The shorter the |d0 | is, the greater is Multi-MCs compressibility. Magnetic eld lines of MC1 body initially appears to be too frail to resist the collision in the face of the overtaking high-speed MC2, so |d0 | is steadily reduced. As the evolution of Multi-MC proceeds, the MC1 body suers from larger and larger compression, and its original vulnerable magnetic elasticity becomes stier and stier. When the accumulated inherent magnetic elasticity in the highly shrunk MC1 body can counteract the external compression, the previous continuously reducing |d0 | drastically approximates to an asymptotic limit. Magnetic elasticity not only buers the collision between MCs, but also leads to a cuto compression degree of Multi-MC. Moreover, the collision of MC2 with a very wide speed spectrum upon MC1 has a little inuence to enhance the cuto compressibility. However, if magnetic reconnection occurs within the interacting region of Multi-MC, the cuto compressibility would be expected to decrease a bit.

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Overall, the Multi-MC is of great concern for space weather community. The geoeffectiveness enhancement of coupling of multiple MCs is virtually ascribed to compression in the Multi-MC. The maximum compressibility of Multi-MC is mainly decided by its inherent magnetic elasticity. Acknowledgments. This work was supported by the National Key Basic Research Special Foundation of China (2006CB806304), the Chinese Academy of Sciences Grant No. KZCX3-SW-144, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40336052, 40404014, 40525014 and 40574063), and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (startup fund). S. T. Wu was supported by an NSF grant (ATM03-16115).

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Figure 1 The evolution of MC2 overtaking MC1 for Case B1 , with (a)-(c) magnetic eld magnitude B , (d)-(f) radial ow speed vr , and (g)-(i) radial characteristic speed of fast mode cf . Attached below each image are two additional radial proles along Lat.= 0 and 4.5 S. Note that radial prole of B is plotted by subtracting the initial ambient value B |t=0 . The white solid line in each image denotes the MC boundary. Solid and dashed lines at each prole denote MC core and boundary. Only part of domain is adaptively plotted to highlight Multi-MC. Figure 2 In-situ hypothetical observation along Lat. = 4.5 S for Case B1 . Stacked from top to bottom are (a) magnetic eld magnitude B , (b) elevation of magnetic eld , (c) radial ow speed vr , (d) derived dawn-dusk electric eld V Bz , and (e) Dst index. Solid and dashed delimiting lines denote MC center and boundary.

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Figure 3 The evolution of MC2 overtaking MC1 for Case C1 with radial ow speed vr . Figure 4 In-situ hypothetical observation along Lat. = 4.5 S for Case C1 . Figure 5 The time dependence of MC parameters: (a) radial distance of MC core rm , (b) MC radial span Sr , (c) MC angular span S, and (d) MC cross section area A. The thick dashed and solid lines denoted the preceding MC1 and following MC2 in MultiMC Case C1 , superimposed with thin lines for corresponding individual MC cases for comparison. Three vertical delimiting lines (dotted, dashed and dotted) from left to right correspond to the occasion of MC2-driven shock encountering MC1 body tail, MC2 body hitting MC1 body tail, and MC2-driven shock reaching MC1 body head, respectively. Figure 6 In-situ hypothetical observation along Lat. = 4.5 S for (A) Case B2 and (B) Case C2 . Cases B2 and C2 dier from their respective companion Cases B1 and C1 by the opposite MC2 magnetic helicities. Figure 7 The comparison of latitudinal distribution of Dst index among the Multi-MC Cases B1 , C1 , B2 , and C2 . Double Dst dips in Cases B1 and C1 with positive magnetic helicities in MC2 are shown in (A) DstP 1 and (B) DstP 2 , as well as a single Dst dip in Cases B2 and C2 with negative helicity in MC2 shown in (C) DstN . Dashed and dash-dotted lines in (A) and (B) correspond to Cases B1 and C1 respectively; dashed and dash-dotted lines in (C) correspond to Cases B2 and C2 respectively. The isolated events corresponding to MC1 and MC2 for Case B1 are denoted as solid lines in (A) and (B), those for Case B2 as solid thick and thin lines in (C). Figure 8 The d0 -dependent parameter variances at L1 in Group EID1 : (a) Dt, time interval of MCs (Dt = tmc2 tmc1 , tmc1 = 0 hour); (b) dDst , penetration depth of MC2driven shock in MC1 medium; (c) Max.(Bmc1 ), the maximum of magnetic eld strength

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907

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in MC1; and (d) Max.(Bmc2 ), the maximum of magnetic eld strength in MC2. Here d0 refers to the distance between MC2 core rmc2 and MC1 core rmc1 on the occasion of MC1 head just reaching L1, namely d0 = rmc2 rmc1 . The vertical delimiting dotted and dashed lines denote the occasions of MC2-driven shock just hitting MC1 core and head at L1. In (c) and (d), the thick solid and dashed lines denote observations along Lat. = 0 and 4.5 S, while the thin horizontal ones represent the values of corresponding isolated MC events. Figure 9 The parameter variances of Multi-MC geoeectiveness as a function of d0 : (a, e, i) Dst index; (b, f, j) Min.(V Bz ), the minimum of dawn-dusk electric eld V Bz ; (c, g, k) t, the interval between the commencement of V Bz < 0.5 mV/m and the corresponding minimum Dst; and (d, h, l) Min.(Bs), the minimum of southward magnetic component. Solid and dashed lines correspond to observations along Lat.= 0 and 4.5 S respectively. The double Dst dips in Group EID1 are shown by Columns (A) DstP 1 and (B) DstP 2 , and the single Dst dip in Group EID2 by Column (C) DstN . The horizontal solid and dashed lines denote observations of the isolated events, corresponding to Group EID1 , at Lat. = 0 and 4.5 S respectively, with MC1 in Column (A) and MC2 in Column (B). Figure 10 The reliance of Dst in Multi-MC cases on initial speed of following MC2. Double Dst dips in Group CID1 are shown as dashed lines by (A) DstP 1 and (B) DstP 2 , while a single Dst dip in Group CID2 by (C) DstN . Decoupled MC1 and MC2 events in Group CID1 are plotted as solid lines in (A) and (B), those in Group CID2 as thick and thin solid lines in (C). The curves of single MC2 event in (B) and (C) are non-horizontal due to vmc2 variance.

909

910

911

912

913

914

915

916

917

918

919

920

921

922

923

924

925

926

927

928

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Figure 11 The dependence of Multi-MC characteristic parameters at L1 on MC2-MC1 eruption interval Dt (Dt = 1 Dt = tmc1 tmc2 ) and MC2 speed vmc2 is shown by Columns (A) Group EID1 and (B) Group CID1 . T Tmc1 , the Sun-Earth transient time of MC1, is shown in (a) and (g); Tmc1 , MC1 event duration at L1, in (c) and (i); Srmc1 , MC1 radial span, in (e) and (k); and d0 , the distance between MC2 and MC1 core, in (f) and (l). (a), (c), (g), (i) and (b), (d), (h), (j) are the counterparts for MC1 and MC2 respectively. (e), (f), (k), and (l) refer to the occasion when MC1 head just reaches L1. Dashed lines in all panels except (f) and (l) represent the corresponding isolated MC events for comparison. The vertical dotted and dashed lines in Column (A) denote the cases of MC2-driven shock just hitting MC1 core and head respectively.

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937

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Table 1.

Assortment of simulation cases of individual MC Group Case vmc (102 km/s) IM1 b1 , c1 , d1 , 4, 6, 5, e1 , f1 , g1 , 7, 8, 9, h1 , i1 , j1 IM2 10, 11, 12 Individual MC (Hmc = 1) Individual MC (Hmc = 1) Comment

b2 , c2 , d2 , 4, 6, 5, e2 , f2 , g2 , 7, 8, 9, h2 , i2 , j2 10, 11, 12

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Table 2.

Assortment of simulation cases of Multi-MC. Note that vmc1 = 400 km/s,

tmc1 = 0 hour for all 48 cases. Group Case vmc2 (102 km/s) EID1 B1 , C1 , D1 , E1 , F1 , G1 , H1 , I1 , J1 , K1 , L1 , M1 , N1 , O1 , P1 , Q1 EID2 B2 , C2 , D2 , E2 , F2 , G2 , H2 , I2 , J2 , K2 , L2 , M2 , N2 , O2 , P2 , Q2 CID1 R1 , S1 , C1 , T1 , 6 6 tmc2 (hour) 30.1, 12.2, 44.1, 42.1, Eruption Interval 40.1, 37.1, 35.1, 33.1, Dependence 31.5, 28.1, 25.1, 22.1, (Hmc1 = 1, Hmc2 = 1) 20.1, 17.1, 15.1, 10.2, 30.1, 12.2, 44.1, 42.1, Eruption Interval 40.1, 37.1, 35.1, 33.1, Dependence 31.5, 28.1, 25.1, 22.1, (Hmc1 = 1, Hmc2 = 1) 20.1, 17.1, 15.1, 10.2, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, 12.2 Collision Intensity Dependence (Hmc1 = 1, Hmc2 = 1) Collision Intensity Dependence (Hmc1 = 1, Hmc2 = 1) Comment

U1 , V1 , W1 , X1 , 8, 9, 10, 11, Y1 CID2 R2 , S2 , C2 , T2 , 12 4.5, 5, 6, 7, 12.2

U2 , V2 , W2 , X2 , 8, 9, 10, 11, Y2 12

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Figure 1. D R A F T June 12, 2013, 4:59pm D R A F T

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Figure 2.

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Figure 3.

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Figure 4.

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Figure 5.

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Figure 6.

Figure 7.

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Figure 8.

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Figure 9.

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Figure 10.

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Figure 11.

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