Central finite volume methods for ideal and shallow water magnetohydrodynamics

We propose two‐dimensional central finite volume methods based on our multidimensional extensions of Nessyahu and Tadmor's one‐dimensional non‐oscillatory central scheme and a constrained transport‐type method to solve ideal magnetohydrodynamic problems (MHD) and shallow water magnetohydrodynamic problems (SMHD). The main numerical scheme is second‐order accurate both in space and time and uses an original Cartesian grid coupled to a Cartesian‐ or diamond‐staggered dual grid to by‐pass the resolution of the Riemann problems at the cell interfaces. To treat the non‐vanishing magnetic field/flux divergence we have constructed an adaptation of Evans and Hawley's constrained transport method specifically designed for central schemes. Our numerical results show the efficiency and the potential of the scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.