Revisiting spherically symmetric relativistic hydrodynamics

Abstract

In this paper we revise two classical examples of Relativistic Hydrodynamics in order to illustrate in detail the numerical methods commonly used in fluid dynamics, specifically those designed to deal with shocks, which are based on a finite volume approximation. The two cases we consider are the relativistic blast wave problem and the evolution of a Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff star model, in spherical symmetry. In the first case we illustrate the implementation of relativistic Euler's equations on a fixed background space-time, whereas in the second case we also show how to couple the evolution of the fluid to the evolution of the space-time.