A Radiation Transfer Solver for Athena using Short Characteristics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new radiative transfer solver module for the Athena MHD code, capable of handling multi-frequency RT with scattering and non-LTE effects, providing accurate and efficient solutions for astrophysical simulations.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel implementation of a multi-purpose RT solver in Athena, utilizing short characteristics and accelerated Lambda iteration, with demonstrated accuracy and efficiency in various test problems.

Findings

The RT solver accurately reproduces test problem results.

The operator-split method is stable, convergent, and efficient.

The module's computational cost is comparable to a single MHD timestep.

Abstract

We describe the implementation of a module for the Athena magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) code which solves the time-independent, multi-frequency radiative transfer (RT) equation on multidimensional Cartesian simulation domains, including scattering and non-LTE effects. The module is based on well-known and well-tested algorithms developed for modeling stellar atmospheres, including the method of short characteristics to solve the RT equation, accelerated Lambda iteration to handle scattering and non-LTE effects, and parallelization via domain decomposition. The module serves several purposes: it can be used to generate spectra and images, to compute a variable Eddington tensor (VET) for full radiation MHD simulations, and to calculate the heating and cooling source terms in the MHD equations in flows where radiation pressure is small compared with gas pressure. For the latter case, the module is combined with the standard MHD integrators using operator-splitting and we describe this approach in detail. Implementation of the VET method for radiation pressure dominated flows is described in a companion paper. We present results from a suite of test problems for both the RT solver itself, and for dynamical problems that include radiative heating and cooling. These tests demonstrate that the radiative transfer solution is accurate, and confirm that the operator split method is stable, convergent, and efficient for problems of interest. We demonstrate there is no need to adopt ad-hoc assumptions of questionable accuracy to solve RT problems in concert with MHD: the computational cost for our general-purpose module for simple (e.g. LTE grey) problems can be comparable to or less than a single timestep of Athena's MHD integrators, and only few times more expensive than that for more general problems. (Abridged)