A multidimensional grid-adaptive relativistic magnetofluid code

TL;DR

This paper introduces a robust, second-order numerical scheme for multi-dimensional relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with adaptive mesh refinement, capable of accurately capturing shocks and controlling magnetic monopole errors.

Contribution

It presents a novel shock-capturing scheme combining a TVD Lax-Friedrichs method with a diffusive approach for magnetic monopole control in relativistic MHD simulations.

Findings

Successfully recovers exact solutions to relativistic MHD Riemann problems.

Simulates long-term evolution of Lorentz factor 7 vortical flows.

Demonstrates robustness and accuracy in relativistic MHD scenarios.

Abstract

A robust second order, shock-capturing numerical scheme for multi-dimensional special relativistic magnetohydrodynamics on computational domains with adaptive mesh refinement is presented. The base solver is a total variation diminishing Lax-Friedrichs scheme in a finite volume setting and is combined with a diffusive approach for controlling magnetic monopole errors. The consistency between the primitive and conservative variables is ensured at all limited reconstructions and the spatial part of the four velocity is used as a primitive variable. Demonstrative relativistic examples are shown to validate the implementation. We recover known exact solutions to relativistic MHD Riemann problems, and simulate the shock-dominated long term evolution of Lorentz factor 7 vortical flows distorting magnetic island chains.