A fast-converging scheme for the Phonon Boltzmann equation with dual relaxation times

Abstract

Callaway's dual relaxation times model, which takes into account the normal and resistive scatterings of phonon, is used to describe the heat conduction in materials like graphene. For steady-state problems, the Callaway model is usually solved by the conventional iterative scheme (CIS), which is efficient in the ballistic regime, but inefficient in the diffusive/hydrodynamic regime. In this paper, a general synthetic iterative scheme (GSIS) is proposed to expedite the convergence to steady-state solutions. First, macroscopic synthetic equations are designed to guide the evolution of equilibrium distribution functions for normal and resistive scatterings, so that fast convergence can be achieved even in the diffusive/hydrodynamic regime. Second, the Fourier stability analysis is conducted to find the convergence rate for both CIS and GSIS, which rigorously proves the efficiency of GSIS over CIS. Finally, several numerical simulations are carried out to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of GSIS, where up to three orders of magnitude of convergence acceleration is achieved.