  In recent years, several different strategies have emerged for evolving the
magnetic field in numerical MHD. Some of these methods can be classified as
divergence-cleaning schemes, where one evolves the magnetic field components
just like any other variable in a higher order Godunov scheme. The fact that
the magnetic field is divergence-free is imposed post-facto via a
divergence-cleaning step. Other schemes for evolving the magnetic field rely on
a staggered mesh formulation which is inherently divergence-free. The claim has
been made that the two approaches are equivalent. In this paper we
cross-compare three divergence-cleaning schemes based on scalar and vector
divergence-cleaning and a popular divergence-free scheme. All schemes are
applied to the same stringent test problem. Several deficiencies in all the
divergence-cleaning schemes become clearly apparent with the scalar
divergence-cleaning schemes performing worse than the vector
divergence-cleaning scheme. The vector divergence-cleaning scheme also shows
some deficiencies relative to the staggered mesh divergence-free scheme. The
differences can be explained by realizing that all the divergence-cleaning
schemes are based on a Poisson solver which introduces a non-locality into the
scheme, though other subtler points of difference are also catalogued. By using
several diagnostics that are routinely used in the study of turbulence, it is
shown that the differences in the schemes produce measurable differences in
physical quantities that are of interest in such studies.
