Numerical Hydrodynamics and Magnetohydrodynamics in General Relativity

by: José A. Font

This article presents a comprehensive overview of numerical hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in general relativity. Some significant additions have been incorporated with respect to the previous two versions of this review (2000, 2003), most notably the coverage of general-relativistic MHD, a field in which remarkable activity and progress has occurred in the last few years. Correspondingly, the discussion of astrophysical simulations in general-relativistic hydrodynamics is enlarged to account for recent relevant advances, while those dealing with general-relativistic MHD are amply covered in this review for the first time. The basic outline of this article is nevertheless similar to its earlier versions, save for the addition of MHD-related issues throughout. Hence, different formulations of both the hydrodynamics and MHD equations are presented, with special mention of conservative and hyperbolic formulations well adapted to advanced numerical methods. A large sample of numerical approaches for solving such hyperbolic systems of equations is discussed, paying particular attention to solution procedures based on schemes exploiting the characteristic structure of the equations through linearized Riemann solvers. As previously stated, a comprehensive summary of astrophysical simulations in strong gravitational fields is also presented. These are detailed in three basic sections, namely gravitational collapse, black-hole accretion, and neutron-star evolutions; despite the boundaries, these sections may (and in fact do) overlap throughout the discussion. The material contained in these sections highlights the numerical challenges of various representative simulations. It also follows, to some extent, the chronological development of the field, concerning advances in the formulation of the gravitational field, hydrodynamics and MHD equations and the numerical methodology designed to solve them. To keep the length of this article reasonable, an effort has been made to focus on multidimensional studies, directing the interested reader to earlier versions of the review for discussions on one-dimensional works.

Relativistic Fluid Dynamics: Physics for Many Different Scales

by: Nils Andersson and Gregory L. Comer

The relativistic fluid is a highly successful model used to describe the dynamics of many-particle, relativistic systems. It takes as input basic physics from microscopic scales and yields as output predictions of bulk, macroscopic motion. By inverting the process, an understanding of bulk features can lead to insight into physics on the microscopic scale. Relativistic fluids have been used to model systems as “small” as heavy ions in collisions, and as large as the Universe itself, with “intermediate” sized objects like neutron stars being considered along the way. The purpose of this review is to discuss the mathematical and theoretical physics underpinnings of the relativistic (multiple) fluid model. We focus on the variational principle approach championed by Brandon Carter and his collaborators, in which a crucial element is to distinguish the momenta that are conjugate to the particle number density currents. This approach differs from the “standard” text-book derivation of the equations of motion from the divergence of the stress-energy tensor in that one explicitly obtains the relativistic Euler equation as an “integrability” condition on the relativistic vorticity. We discuss the conservation laws and the equations of motion in detail, and provide a number of (in our opinion) interesting and relevant applications of the general theory.

Numerical Hydrodynamics in Special Relativity

by: José Maria Martí and Ewald Müller

This review is concerned with a discussion of numerical methods for the solution of the equations of special relativistic hydrodynamics (SRHD). Particular emphasis is put on a comprehensive review of the application of high-resolution shock-capturing methods in SRHD. Results of a set of demanding test bench simulations obtained with different numerical SRHD methods are compared. Three applications (astrophysical jets, gamma-ray bursts and heavy ion collisions) of relativistic flows are discussed. An evaluation of various SRHD methods is presented, and future developments in SRHD are analyzed involving extension to general relativistic hydrodynamics and relativistic magneto-hydrodynamics. The review further provides FORTRAN programs to compute the exact solution of a 1D relativistic Riemann problem with zero and nonzero tangential velocities, and to simulate 1D relativistic flows in Cartesian Eulerian coordinates using the exact SRHD Riemann solver and PPM reconstruction.