A Novel Multigrid Method for Sn Discretizations of the Mono-Energetic Boltzmann Transport Equation in the Optically Thick and Thin Regimes with Anisotropic Scattering, Part I

Abstract

This paper presents a new multigrid method applied to the most common Sn discretizations (Petrov–Galerkin, diamond-differenced, corner-balanced, and discontinuous Galerkin) of the mono-energetic Boltzmann transport equation in the optically thick and thin regimes, and with strong anisotropic scattering. Unlike methods that use scalar DSA diffusion preconditioners for the source iteration, this multigrid method is applied directly to an integral equation for the scalar flux. Thus, unlike the former methods that apply a multigrid strategy to the scalar DSA diffusion operator, this method applies a multigrid strategy to the integral source iteration operator, which is an operator for 5 independent variables in spatial three dimensions (3-d), 3 in space and 2 in angle, and 4 independent variables in spatial 2-d (2 in space and 2 in angle). The core smoother of this multigrid method involves applications of the integral operator. Since the kernel of this integral operator involves the transport sweeps, applyin...