18,544 research outputs found
Constraint and gauge shocks in one-dimensional numerical relativity
We study how different types of blow-ups can occur in systems of hyperbolic
evolution equations of the type found in general relativity. In particular, we
discuss two independent criteria that can be used to determine when such
blow-ups can be expected. One criteria is related with the so-called geometric
blow-up leading to gradient catastrophes, while the other is based upon the
ODE-mechanism leading to blow-ups within finite time. We show how both
mechanisms work in the case of a simple one-dimensional wave equation with a
dynamic wave speed and sources, and later explore how those blow-ups can appear
in one-dimensional numerical relativity. In the latter case we recover the well
known ``gauge shocks'' associated with Bona-Masso type slicing conditions.
However, a crucial result of this study has been the identification of a second
family of blow-ups associated with the way in which the constraints have been
used to construct a hyperbolic formulation. We call these blow-ups ``constraint
shocks'' and show that they are formulation specific, and that choices can be
made to eliminate them or at least make them less severe.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures and 1 table, revised version including several
amendments suggested by the refere
A class of Galerkin schemes for time-dependent radiative transfer
The numerical solution of time-dependent radiative transfer problems is
challenging, both, due to the high dimension as well as the anisotropic
structure of the underlying integro-partial differential equation. In this
paper we propose a general framework for designing numerical methods for
time-dependent radiative transfer based on a Galerkin discretization in space
and angle combined with appropriate time stepping schemes. This allows us to
systematically incorporate boundary conditions and to preserve basic properties
like exponential stability and decay to equilibrium also on the discrete level.
We present the basic a-priori error analysis and provide abstract error
estimates that cover a wide class of methods. The starting point for our
considerations is to rewrite the radiative transfer problem as a system of
evolution equations which has a similar structure like first order hyperbolic
systems in acoustics or electrodynamics. This analogy allows us to generalize
the main arguments of the numerical analysis for such applications to the
radiative transfer problem under investigation. We also discuss a particular
discretization scheme based on a truncated spherical harmonic expansion in
angle, a finite element discretization in space, and the implicit Euler method
in time. The performance of the resulting mixed PN-finite element time stepping
scheme is demonstrated by computational results
A Hybrid Godunov Method for Radiation Hydrodynamics
From a mathematical perspective, radiation hydrodynamics can be thought of as
a system of hyperbolic balance laws with dual multiscale behavior (multiscale
behavior associated with the hyperbolic wave speeds as well as multiscale
behavior associated with source term relaxation). With this outlook in mind,
this paper presents a hybrid Godunov method for one-dimensional radiation
hydrodynamics that is uniformly well behaved from the photon free streaming
(hyperbolic) limit through the weak equilibrium diffusion (parabolic) limit and
to the strong equilibrium diffusion (hyperbolic) limit. Moreover, one finds
that the technique preserves certain asymptotic limits. The method incorporates
a backward Euler upwinding scheme for the radiation energy density and flux as
well as a modified Godunov scheme for the material density, momentum density,
and energy density. The backward Euler upwinding scheme is first-order accurate
and uses an implicit HLLE flux function to temporally advance the radiation
components according to the material flow scale. The modified Godunov scheme is
second-order accurate and directly couples stiff source term effects to the
hyperbolic structure of the system of balance laws. This Godunov technique is
composed of a predictor step that is based on Duhamel's principle and a
corrector step that is based on Picard iteration. The Godunov scheme is
explicit on the material flow scale but is unsplit and fully couples matter and
radiation without invoking a diffusion-type approximation for radiation
hydrodynamics. This technique derives from earlier work by Miniati & Colella
2007. Numerical tests demonstrate that the method is stable, robust, and
accurate across various parameter regimes.Comment: accepted for publication in Journal of Computational Physics; 61
pages, 15 figures, 11 table
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