Total-Variation-Diminishing Implicit-Explicit Runge-Kutta Methods for the Simulation of Double-Diffusive Convection in Astrophysics

TL;DR

This paper introduces total-variation-diminishing implicit-explicit Runge-Kutta methods for simulating stellar convection, demonstrating improved efficiency and stability in modeling double-diffusive convection in astrophysics.

Contribution

It develops and analyzes new TVD-IMEX Runge-Kutta methods tailored for astrophysical convection simulations, enhancing computational stability and efficiency.

Findings

Methods improve computational efficiency over classical explicit schemes.

Stability and accuracy are maintained with the new integrators.

Significant gain in efficiency demonstrated in stellar convection simulations.

Abstract

We put forward the use of total-variation-diminishing (or more generally, strong stability preserving) implicit-explicit Runge-Kutta methods for the time integration of the equations of motion associated with the semiconvection problem in the simulation of stellar convection. The fully compressible Navier-Stokes equation, augmented by continuity and total energy equations, and an equation of state describing the relation between the thermodynamic quantities, is semi-discretized in space by essentially non-oscillatory schemes and dissipative finite difference methods. It is subsequently integrated in time by Runge-Kutta methods which are constructed such as to preserve the total variation diminishing (or strong stability) property satisfied by the spatial discretization coupled with the forward Euler method. We analyse the stability, accuracy and dissipativity of the time integrators and demonstrate that the most successful methods yield a substantial gain in computational efficiency as compared to classical explicit Runge-Kutta methods.