Relativistic magnetohydrodynamics in one dimension

Relativistic magnetohydrodynamics

The lowest-order description of a magnetized plasma is given by magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). However, many astrophysical plasmas (as well as some laboratory plasmas) are relativistic, in that either the thermal speed or the fluid flow speed approaches the speed of light, and conventional MHD is not consistent with special relativity. Beginning with exact laws of motion, this work derives a gener...

Smoothed Particle Magnetohydrodynamics – I. Algorithm and tests in one dimension

In this paper we show how the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) equations for ideal Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) can be written in conservation form with the positivity of the dissipation guaranteed. We call the resulting algorithm Smoothed Particle Magnetohydrodynamics (SPMHD). The equations appear to be accurate, robust and easy to apply and do not suffer from the instabilities known to exi...

General relativistic hydrodynamics and magnetohydrodynamics: hyperbolic systems in relativistic astrophysics

Linear wave propagation in relativistic magnetohydrodynamics

The properties of linear Alfvén, slow, and fast magnetoacoustic waves for uniform plasmas in relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) are discussed, augmenting the well-known expressions for their phase speeds with knowledge on the group speed. A 3 + 1 formalism is purposely adopted to make direct comparison with the Newtonian MHD limits easier and to stress the graphical representation of their...

A Numerical Method for General Relativistic Magnetohydrodynamics

This paper describes the development and testing of a general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) code to study ideal MHD in the fixed background of a Kerr black hole. The code is a direct extension of the hydrodynamic code of Hawley, Smarr, and Wilson, and uses Evans and Hawley constrained transport (CT) to evolve the magnetic fields. Two categories of test cases were undertaken. A one di...