Realistic simulations of solar active regions: From emergence to eruption

Our understanding on the process of magnetic flux emergence developed greatly in the Hinode era by both observations with higher resolution and cadence, and more sophisticated numerical simulations. In this talk, I will focus on the development and some recent results from realistic simulations of magnetic flux emergence and active regions. These simulations are designed to represent the conditions of the real Sun and account for the important physical process in the solar atmosphere. This allows the model to synthesized observables that can be quantitatively compared with real observations. In a recent work, this method has been extend to conduct a comprehensive 3D simulation of a solar flare, which can successfully reproduce many observational properties. We also couple a solar convective dynamo simulation to a realistic flux emergence simulation. In the 50 hours evolution, more than 100 solar flares occur in the simulation. Many flares reaches C class as defined by the synthetic GOES flux. The largest one is in M class and releases 4E31 erg of magnetic energy. Connecting realistic numerical simulation and observations will help us on interpreting observations and developing theories, and hopefully lead to a better understanding the Sun.