Enzo 2.2 documentation

MHD Methods

Dedner cleans \nabla \cdot B with a wave-like hyperbolic cleaner, and is easy to use.

CT preserves \nabla \cdot B to machine precision, but is slightly harder to use.

quantity MHD-RK MHD-CT
Reconstruction PLM PLM
Splitting Unsplit, Runge Kutta Split (strang)
\nabla \cdot B Few Percent Machine Noise
Difficulty Easy Less Easy

Use of Dedner

The Dedner method (HydroMethod = 4) is relatively straight forward. The three magnetic components are stored in BaryonField, with the relevant indices found through IdentifyFieldQuantities. Since they hyperbolic cleaner will largely eliminate any divergence, initialization an injection of magnetic energy is straight forward.

AMR is done in the same manner as other fluid quantities in Enzo.

The method is described in Dedner et al. 2002 JCP 175, 2, 645-673

The implementation and test problems can be found in Wang & Abel 2009, ApJ 696 96.

Use of MHD-CT

Use of MHD-CT (HydroMethod = 6) is complicated by the staggered nature of the magnetic field. This allows the field to be updated by the curl of an electric field, thus preserving \nabla \cdot B = 0 to machine precision, but requires some additional machinery to ensure consistency of the data structure.

The primary references are:

CT algorithms: Balsara & Spicer 1999, JCP, 149, 2, 270-292

Gardiner & Stone 2005, JCP, 205, 2, 509-539

AMR Algorithm: Balsara 2001 JCP, 174, 2, 614-648

Implementation and test problems: Collins, Xu, Norman, Li & Li, ApJS 186, 2, 308.

Enzo uses two representations of the magnetic field. Uses two filds: staggered field, MagneticField and Centered field, CenteredB. Also uses an edge staggered field, ElectricField. MagneticField, being stored on the faces of the zones, has one additional point along each component. For instance, if a grid had dimensions n_x, n_y, n_z then

B_x will have dimensions n_x+1, n_y, n_z. ElectricField has additional points transverse to the direction

of the component, so E_x has dimensions n_x, n_y+1, n_z+1. There are several helper variables, such as MagneticDims[3][3], ElectricDims[3][3], MagneticSize[3], and ElectricSize[3] to describe these variables.

Dealing with the Magnetic Field

CenteredB should be considered a read-only quantity– it is replaced with a centered spatial average of MagneticField as necessary. MagneticField should only be modified in a manner that is definitely divergence free. For more general initialization, one can use the function MHD_Curl for fields that can be represented by a vector potential.

Interpolation

Interpolation must be done, obviously, in a divergence-free manner. Balsara 2001 describes this method. Interpolation is done on all three components of MagneticField at once. This method only allows RefineBy = 2.

One challenge of this method is that newly interpolated regions require knowledge of any fine-grid data at the same level that may share a face. Thus instead of simply interpolating from parent grids, then copying from old fine grids, MHDCT must use the magnetic information from the old fine grids. This is done by first computing interpolation derivatives (done in Grid_MHD_CID.C and stored in DyBx, etc) then communicating this information to the relevant parent grids (done in Grid_SendOldFineGrids.C) This makes MHD-CT interpolation a 3 grid interaction (Parent, Child, Old Child) rather than a 2 body interaction (Parent and Child) as all other fields.

Projection and Flux Correction

As with other quantities, magnetic fields need to be projected to parents, then coarse zones next to projected zones need to be corrected to ensure conservation. As described by Balsara 2001, this involves area weighted projection of face centered field on the fine grid, then a correction using the electric field. In order to simplify the logic and machinery, Enzo MHD-CT actually projects the ElectricField, then takes the curl over the new magnetic field. This is formally equivalent to projection plus flux correction, but doesn’t have as many cases to check and grid interactions to worry about. This is done in EvolveLevel by the routine Grid_MHD_UpdateMagneticField

MHDCTUseSpecificEnergy

Historically, Enzo MHDCT used conserved energy throughout, rather than specific energy as done in the rest of Enzo. Upon porting to Enzo2.3, this was changed, but due to some unforeseen issues, this changes the answer. This is provided to ensure compatibility with old answers, and because the author is suspicious about that which changes the answer. This will be removed in the future.

Future Work (or, “Glitches”)

Most neighbor searching throughout Enzo is done with the Fast Neighbor Locator, which uses a chaining mesh to identify neighbors. This is not done for the communication done in SendOldFineGrids, but should be.

Additionally, both SendOldFineGrids and the electric field projection need to be updated to work with the 3 phase non-blocking communication

In principle, the CT machinery can be used in conjunction with the MHD-RK machinery. Interested students can contact dcollins for further instruction.

Presently MHD-CT needs additional layers of ghost zones over the base hydro. I believe that I can reduce this by communicating the electric field, which will improve memory overhead. Again, interested parties can contact me for details.

Multi-species needs to be tested.

Presently, the centered magnetic field is stored in CenteredB rather than an element of the BaryonField array. This was done in order to signify that the array is “Read Only.” This should probably be changed.

The mhd interpolation routine, mhd_interpolate.F, is an abomination. I apologize. I’ll fix it some day.