General-relativistic lattice-Boltzmann method for radiation transport

ABSTRACT We present the first extension of the special-relativistic lattice-Boltzmann method for radiative transport to solve the radiative-transfer equation in curved space–times. The novel approach is based on the streaming of carefully selected photons along null geodesics and interpolating their final positions, velocities, and frequency shifts to all photons in a given velocity stencil. Furthermore, by transforming between the laboratory frame, the Eulerian frame, and the fluid frame, we are able to perform the collision step in the fluid frame, thus retaining the collision operator of the special-relativistic case with only minor modifications. As a result, with the new method we can model the evolution of the frequency-independent (grey) radiation field as it interacts with a background fluid via absorption, emission, and scattering in a curved background space–time. Finally, by introducing a refined adaptive stencil, which is suitably distorted in the direction of propagation of the photon bundle, we can reduce the computational costs of the method while improving its performance in the optically thin regime. A number of standard and novel tests are presented to validate the approach and exhibit its robustness and accuracy.