Non-symmetric magnetohydrostatic equilibria: a multigrid approach

MacTaggart, David, Elsheikh, Abdulaziz, McLaughlin, James and Simitev, Radostin (2013) Non-symmetric magnetohydrostatic equilibria: a multigrid approach. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 556. A40. ISSN 0004-6361

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201220458

Abstract

Aims: Linear magnetohydrostatic (MHS) models of solar magnetic fields balance plasma pressure gradients, gravity and Lorentz forces where the current density is composed of a linear force-free component and a cross-field component that depends on gravitational stratification. In this paper, we investigate an efficient numerical procedure for calculating such equilibria.

Methods: The MHS equations are reduced to two scalar elliptic equations – one on the lower boundary and the other within the interior of the computational domain. The normal component of the magnetic field is prescribed on the lower boundary and a multigrid method is applied on both this boundary and within the domain to find the poloidal scalar potential. Once solved to a desired accuracy, the magnetic field, plasma pressure and density are found using a finite difference method.

Results: We investigate the effects of the cross-field currents on the linear MHS equilibria. Force-free and non-force-free examples are given to demonstrate the numerical scheme and an analysis of speed-up due to parallelization on a graphics processing unit (GPU) is presented. It is shown that speed-ups of ×30 are readily achievable.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: magnetic fields, magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), methods: numerical
Subjects: F300 Physics
F500 Astronomy
F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
G100 Mathematics
Department: Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering
Depositing User: Prof James McLaughlin
Date Deposited: 04 Oct 2013 08:09
Last Modified: 17 Dec 2023 14:36
URI: https://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/13792

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