Non-Oscillatory Central Difference and Artificial Viscosity Schemes for Relativistic Hydrodynamics

Abstract

High resolution, non-oscillatory, central difference (NOCD) numerical schemes are introduced as alternatives to more traditional artificial viscosity (AV) and Godunov methods for solving the fully general relativistic hydrodynamics equations. These new approaches provide the advantages of Godunov methods in capturing ultra-relativistic flows without the cost and complication of Riemann solvers, and the advantages of AV methods in their speed, ease of implementation, and general applicability without explicitly using artificial viscosity for shock capturing. Shock tube, wall shock, and dust accretion tests, all with adiabatic equations of state, are presented and compared against equivalent solutions from both AV and Godunov based codes. In the process we address the accuracy of time-explicit NOCD and AV methods over a wide range of Lorentz factors.