A numerical algorithm for magnetohydrodynamics of ablated materials

A numerical algorithm for the simulation of magnetohydrodynamics in partially ionized ablated material is described. For the hydro part, the hyperbolic conservation laws with electromagnetic terms is solved using techniques developed for free surface flows; for the electromagnetic part, the electrostatic approximation is applied and an elliptic equation for electric potential is solved. The algorithm has been implemented in the frame of front tracking, which explicitly tracks geometrically complex evolving interfaces. An elliptic solver based on the embedded boundary method were implemented for both two- and three-dimensional simulations. A surface model on the interface between the solid target and the ablated vapor has also been developed as well as a numerical model for the equation of state which accounts for atomic processes in the ablated material. The code has been applied to simulations of the pellet ablation in a magnetically confined plasma and the laser-ablated plasma plume expansion in magnetic fields.