Shock wave structure in astrophysical flows with an account of photon transfer

TL;DR

This paper develops a detailed model of shock wave structures in high-energy astrophysical flows by solving the relativistic radiative transfer equations, improving understanding of shock phenomena in extreme astrophysical environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel iterative method for solving relativistic radiation hydrodynamics equations, including radiative transfer, for shock wave analysis in astrophysics.

Findings

Radiative transfer solutions differ significantly from Eddington and M1 approximations.

Conditions for jump discontinuities in non-relativistic radiation shocks are numerically identified.

The method effectively models relativistic, radiation-dominated shock structures.

Abstract

For an accurate treatment of the shock wave propagation in high-energy astrophysical phenomena, such as supernova shock breakouts, gamma-ray bursts and accretion disks, knowledge of radiative transfer plays a crucial role. In this paper we consider one-dimensional (1D) special relativistic radiation hydrodynamics by solving the Boltzmann equation for radiative transfer. The structure of a radiative shock is calculated for a number of shock tube problems, including strong shock waves, and relativistic- and radiation-dominated cases. Calculations are performed using an iterative technique that consistently solves the equations of relativistic hydrodynamics and relativistic comoving radiative transfer. A comparison of radiative transfer solutions with the Eddington approximation and the M1 closure is made. A qualitative analysis of moment equations for radiation is performed and the conditions for the existence of jump discontinuity for non-relativistic cases are investigated numerically.