First-Order General-Relativistic Viscous Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

We present the first generalization of Navier-Stokes theory to relativity that satisfies all of the following properties: (a) the system coupled to Einstein’s equations is causal and strongly hyperbolic; (b) equilibrium states are stable; (c) all leading dissipative contributions are present, i.e., shear viscosity, bulk viscosity, and thermal conductivity; (d) nonzero baryon number is included; (e) entropy production is non-negative in the regime of validity of the theory; (f) all of the above hold in the nonlinear regime without any simplifying symmetry assumptions. These properties are accomplished using a generalization of Eckart’s theory containing only the hydrodynamic variables, so that no new extended degrees of freedom are needed as in Müller-Israel-Stewart theories. Property (b), in particular, follows from a more general result that we also establish, namely, sufficient conditions that when added to stability in the fluid’s rest frame imply stability in any reference frame obtained via a Lorentz transformation All of our results are mathematically rigorously established. The framework presented here provides the starting point for systematic investigations of general-relativistic viscous phenomena in neutron star mergers.Received 9 October 2020Revised 18 January 2022Accepted 15 February 2022DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021044Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.Published by the American Physical SocietyPhysics Subject Headings (PhySH)Research AreasFluids & classical fields in curved spacetimeGeneral relativityGeneral relativity equations & solutionsTechniquesRelativistic hydrodynamicsGravitation, Cosmology & AstrophysicsFluid Dynamics