Because the magnetorotational instability is capable of exponentially amplifying weak preexisting magnetic fields, it might be hoped that the character of the magnetic field in accretion disks would be independent of the nature of the seed field. However, the divergence-free nature of magnetic fields in highly conducting fluids ensures that their large-scale topology is preserved, no matter how greatly the field intensity is changed. By performing global two-dimensional and threedimensional general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic disk simulations with several different topologies for the initial magnetic field, we explore the degree to which the character of the flows around black holes depends on the initial topology. We find that while the qualitative properties of the accretion flow are nearly independent of field topology, jet-launching is very sensitive to it: a sense of vertical field consistent for at least an inner disk inflow time is essential to the support of strong jets.
We report on a global, three-dimensional GRMHD simulation of an accretion torus embedded in a large scale vertical magnetic field orbiting a Schwarzschild black hole. This simulation investigates how a large scale vertical field evolves within a turbulent accretion disk and whether global magnetic field configurations suitable for launching jets and winds can develop. We find that a "coronal mechanism" of magnetic flux motion, which operates largely outside the disk body, dominates global flux evolution. In this mechanism, magnetic stresses driven by orbital shear create large-scale half-loops of magnetic field that stretch arXiv:0906.2784v2 [astro-ph.HE]
Grid-based magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations have proven invaluable for the study of astrophysical accretion disks. However, the fact that angular momentum transport in disks is mediated by MHD turbulence (with structure down to very small scales) raises the concern that the properties of the modeled accretion disks are affected by the finite numerical resolution of the simulation. By implementing an orbital advection algorithm into the Athena code in cylindrical geometry, we have performed a set of global (but unstratified) Newtonian disk simulations extending up to resolutions previously unattained. We study the convergence of these models as a function of spatial resolution and initial magnetic field geometry. The usual viscosity parameter (α) or the ratio of thermal-tomagnetic pressure (β) are found to be poor diagnostics of convergence, whereas the average tilt angle of the magnetic field in the (r, φ)-plane is a very good diagnostic of convergence. We suggest that this is related to the saturation of the MHD turbulence via parasitic modes of the magnetorotational instability. Even in the case of zero-net magnetic flux, we conclude that our highest resolution simulations (with 32-zones and 64-zones per vertical scale height) have achieved convergence.Our global simulations reach resolutions comparable to those used in local, shearing box models of MHD disk turbulence. We find that the saturation predictors derived from local simulations correspond well to the instantaneous correlations between local flux and stress found in our global simulations. However, the conservation of magnetic flux implicit in local models is not realized in our
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