Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
520466 Journal of Computational Physics 2010 16 Pages PDF
Abstract

The wave equation for vectors and symmetric tensors in spherical coordinates is studied under the divergence-free constraint. We describe a numerical method, based on the spectral decomposition of vector/tensor components onto spherical harmonics, that allows for the evolution of only those scalar fields which correspond to the divergence-free degrees of freedom of the vector/tensor. The full vector/tensor field is recovered at each time-step from these two (in the vector case), or three (symmetric tensor case) scalar fields, through the solution of a first-order system of ordinary differential equations (ODE) for each spherical harmonic. The correspondence with the poloidal–toroidal decomposition is shown for the vector case. Numerical tests are presented using an explicit Chebyshev-tau method for the radial coordinate.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Computer Science Applications
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