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We study a semi-implicit time-difference scheme for magnetohydrodynamics of a viscous and resistive incompressible fluid in a bounded smooth domain with a perfectly conducting boundary. In the scheme, the velocity and magnetic fields are updated by solving simple Helmholtz equations. Pressure is treated explicitly in time, by solving Poisson equations corresponding to a recently de- veloped formula for the Navier-Stokes pressure involving the commutator of Laplacian and Leray projection operators. We prove stability of the time-difference scheme, and deduce a local-time well- posedness theorem for MHD dynamics extended to ignore the divergence-free constraint on velocity and magnetic fields. These fields are divergence-free for all later time if they are initially so.

Time-dependent incompressible viscous flow, Stokes pressure, Leray projection,projection method, pressure Poisson equation.