A resolution criterion based on characteristic time-scales for MHD simulations of molecular clouds

We investigate the effect of numerical magnetic diffusion in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of magnetically supported molecular clouds. To this end, we have performed numerical studies on adaptive mesh isothermal simulations of marginally subcritical molecular clouds. We find that simulations with low and intermediate resolutions collapse, contrary to what is theoretically expected. However, the simulation with the highest numerical resolution oscillates around an equilibrium state without collapsing. In order to quantify the numerical diffusion of the magnetic field, we ran a second suit of current-sheet simulations in which the numerical magnetic diffusion coefficient can be directly measured and computed the corresponding diffusion times at various numerical resolutions. On this basis, we propose a criterion for the resolution of magnetic fields in MHD simulations based on requiring that the diffusion time to be larger than the characteristic time-scale of the physical process responsible for the dynamic evolution of the structure.