A sweep-based low-rank method for the discrete ordinate transport equation

The dynamical low-rank (DLR) approximation is an efficient technique to approximate the solution to matrix differential equations. Recently, the DLR method was applied to radiation transport calculations to reduce memory requirements and computational costs. This work extends the low-rank scheme for the time-dependent radiation transport equation in 2-D and 3-D Cartesian geometries with discrete ordinates discretization in angle (SN method). The reduced system that evolves on a low-rank manifold is constructed via an unconventional basis update and Galerkin integrator to avoid a substep that is backward in time, which could be unstable for dissipative problems. The resulting system preserves the information on angular direction by applying separate low-rank decompositions in each octant where angular intensity has the same sign as the direction cosines. Then, transport sweeps and source iteration can efficiently solve this low-rank-SN system. The numerical results in 2-D and 3-D Cartesian geometries demonstrate that the low-rank solution requires less memory and computational time than solving the full rank equations using transport sweeps without losing accuracy

Uncertainty benchmarks for time-dependent transport problems

Uncertainty quantification results are presented for a well known verification solution, the time dependent transport infinite plane pulse. The method of polynomial chaos expansions (PCE) is employed for quick and accurate calculation of the quantities of interest. Also, the method of uncollided solutions is used in this problem to treat part of the uncertainty calculation analytically