Relativistic radiation hydrodynamics in a reference-metric formulation

Abstract

We adopt a two-moment formalism, together with a reference-metric approach, to express the equations of relativistic radiation hydrodynamics in a form that is well-suited for numerical implementations in curvilinear coordinates. We illustrate the approach by employing a gray opacity in an optically thick medium. As numerical demonstrations we present results for two test problems, namely stationary, slab-symmetric solutions in flat spacetimes, including shocks, and heated Oppenheimer-Snyder collapse to a black hole. For the latter, we carefully analyze the transition from an initial transient to a post-transient phase that is well described by an analytically-known diffusion solution. We discuss the properties of the numerical solution when rendered in moving-puncture coordinates.