A conservative semi-Lagrangian scheme for the ellipsoidal BGK model of the Boltzmann equation

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a high order conservative semi-Lagrangian scheme (SL) for the ellipsoidal BGK model of the Boltzmann transport equation. To avoid the time step restriction induced by the convection term, we adopt the semi-Lagrangian approach. For treating the nonlinear stiff relaxation operator with small Knudsen number, we employ high order $L$-stable diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta time discretization or backward difference formula. The proposed implicit schemes are designed to update solutions explicitly without resorting to any Newton solver. We present several numerical tests to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed methods. These methods allow us to obtain accurate approximations of the solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations or the Boltzmann equation for moderate or relatively large Knudsen numbers, respectively.