English

Divergence-Free Magnetohydrodynamics on Conformally Moving, Adaptive Meshes Using a Vector Potential Method

Computational Physics 2019-11-22 v1

Abstract

We present a new method for evolving the equations of magnetohydrodynamics (both Newtonian and relativistic) that is capable of maintaining a divergence-free magnetic field (B=0\nabla \cdot \mathbf{B} = 0) on adaptively refined, conformally moving meshes. The method relies on evolving the magnetic vector potential and then using it to reconstruct the magnetic fields. The advantage of this approach is that the vector potential is not subject to a constraint equation in the same way the magnetic field is, and so can be refined and moved in a straightforward way. We test this new method against a wide array of problems from simple Alfven waves on a uniform grid to general relativistic MHD simulations of black hole accretion on a nested, spherical-polar grid. We find that the code produces accurate results and in all cases maintains a divergence-free magnetic field to machine precision.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.01701,
  title  = {Divergence-Free Magnetohydrodynamics on Conformally Moving, Adaptive Meshes Using a Vector Potential Method},
  author = {P. Chris Fragile and Daniel Nemergut and Payden L. Shaw and Peter Anninos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.01701},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

25 pages, 16 figures, submitted to Journal of Computational Physics

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:31:56.669Z