A Self-gravity Module for the PLUTO Code

Abstract

We present a novel implementation of an iterative solver for the solution of Poisson’s equation in the PLUTO code for astrophysical fluid dynamics. Our solver relies on a relaxation method in which convergence is sought as the steady-state solution of a parabolic equation, whose time discretization is governed by the Runge–Kutta–Legendre (RKL) method. Our findings indicate that the RKL-based Poisson solver, which is both fully parallel and rapidly convergent, has the potential to serve as a practical alternative to conventional iterative solvers such as the Gauss–Seidel and successive overrelaxation methods. Additionally, it can mitigate some of the drawbacks of these traditional techniques. We incorporate our algorithm into a multigrid solver to provide a simple and efficient gravity solver that can be used to obtain the gravitational potentials in self-gravitational hydrodynamics. We test our implementation against a broad range of standard self-gravitating astrophysical problems designed to examine different aspects of the code. We demonstrate that the results match excellently with analytical predictions (when available), and the findings of similar previous studies.