An operator-splitting numerical scheme for relativistic magnetohydrodynamics

Abstract

We describe a novel operator-splitting approach to numerical relativistic magnetohydrodynamics designed to expand its applicability to the domain of ultra-high magnetisation. In this approach, the electromagnetic field is split into the force-free component, governed by the equations of force-free degenerate electrodynamics (FFDE), and the perturbation component, governed by the perturbation equations derived from the full system of relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD). The combined system of the FFDE and perturbation equations is integrated simultaneously, for which various numerical techniques developed for hyperbolic conservation laws can be used. At the end of every time-step of numerical integration, the force-free and the perturbation components of the electromagnetic field are recombined and the result is regarded as the initial value of the force-free component for the next time-step, whereas the initial value of the perturbation component is set to zero. To explore the potential of this approach, we build a 3rd-order WENO code, which was used to carry out 1D and 2D test simulations. Their results show that this operator-splitting approach allows us to bypass the stiffness of RMHD in the ultra-high-magnetisation regime where the perturbation component becomes very small. At the same time, the code performs very well in problems with moderate and low magnetisation too.