A High Order Godunov Scheme with Constrained Transport and Adaptive Mesh Refinement for Astrophysical MHD

Abstract

In this paper, we present a new method to perform numerical simulations of astrophysical MHD flows using the Adaptive Mesh Refinement framework and Constrained Transport. The algorithm is based on a previous work in which the MUSCL--Hancock scheme was used to evolve the induction equation. In this paper, we detail the extension of this scheme to the full MHD equations and discuss its properties. Through a series of test problems, we illustrate the performances of this new code using two different MHD Riemann solvers (Lax-Friedrich and Roe) and the need of the Adaptive Mesh Refinement capabilities in some cases. Finally, we show its versatility by applying it to two completely different astrophysical situations well studied in the past years: the growth of the magnetorotational instability in the shearing box and the collapse of magnetized cloud cores. We have implemented this new Godunov scheme to solve the ideal MHD equations in the AMR code RAMSES. It results in a powerful tool that can be applied to a great variety of astrophysical problems, ranging from galaxies formation in the early universe to high resolution studies of molecular cloud collapse in our galaxy.