A Divergence-Free Upwind Code for Multidimensional Magnetohydrodynamic Flows

A description is given for preserving ∇ · ~ B = 0 in a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) code that employs the upwind, Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) scheme and the Strang-type operator splitting for multi-dimensionality. The method is based on the staggered mesh technique to constrain the transport of magnetic field: the magnetic field components are defined at grid interfaces with their advective fluxes on grid edges, while other quantities are defined at grid centers. The magnetic field at grid centers for the upwind step is calculated by interpolating the values from grid interfaces. The advective fluxes on grid edges for the magnetic field evolution are calculated from the upwind fluxes at grid interfaces. Then, the magnetic field can be maintained with ∇· ~ B = 0 exactly, if this is so initially, while the upwind scheme is used for the update of fluid quantities. The correctness of the code is demonstrated through tests comparing numerical solutions either with analytic solutions or with numerical solutions from the code using an explicit divergence-cleaning method. Also the robustness is shown through tests involving realistic astrophysical problems. Subject headings: magnetohydrodynamics: MHD – methods: numerical Department of Astronomy & Space Science, Chungnam National University, Daejeon 305-764, Korea: [email protected] Department of Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455: [email protected], [email protected] Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627: [email protected] Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal