Computational general relativistic force-free electrodynamics: I. Multi-coordinate implementation and testing

J. F. Mahlmann; M. A. Aloy; V. Mewes; P. Cerdá-Durán

doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202038907

Computational general relativistic force-free electrodynamics: I. Multi-coordinate implementation and testing

J. F. Mahlmann
, M. A. Aloy
, V. Mewes
, P. Cerdá-Durán

Advanced Computing for Nuclear, Particle

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

17 Scopus citations

Abstract

General relativistic force-free electrodynamics is one possible plasma-limit employed to analyze energetic outflows in which strong magnetic fields are dominant over all inertial phenomena. The amazing images of black hole (BH) shadows from the Galactic Center and the M87 galaxy provide a first direct glimpse into the physics of accretion flows in the most extreme environments of the universe. The efficient extraction of energy in the form of collimated outflows or jets from a rotating BH is directly linked to the topology of the surrounding magnetic field. We aim at providing a tool to numerically model the dynamics of such fields in magnetospheres around compact objects, such as BHs and neutron stars. To do so, we probe their role in the formation of high energy phenomena such as magnetar flares and the highly variable teraelectronvolt emission of some active galactic nuclei. In this work, we present numerical strategies capable of modeling fully dynamical force-free magnetospheres of compact astrophysical objects. We provide implementation details and extensive testing of our implementation of general relativistic force-free electrodynamics in Cartesian and spherical coordinates using the infrastructure of the EINSTEIN TOOLKIT. The employed hyperbolic/parabolic cleaning of numerical errors with full general relativistic compatibility allows for fast advection of numerical errors in dynamical spacetimes. Such fast advection of divergence errors significantly improves the stability of the general relativistic force-free electrodynamics modeling of BH magnetospheres.

Original language	English
Article number	A57
Journal	Astronomy and Astrophysics
Volume	647
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038907
State	Published - Mar 1 2021

Funding

Acknowledgements. We appreciate the helpful comments and perspectives contributed by the anonymous referee. J. M. acknowledges a Ph.D. grant of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes. We acknowledge the support from the grants AYA2015-66899-C2-1-P, PGC2018-095984-B-I00, PROMETEO-II-2014-069, and PROMETEU/2019/071. We acknowledge the partial support of the PHAROS COST Action CA16214 and GWverse COST Action CA16104. P. C. D. acknowledges the Ramon y Cajal funding (RYC-2015-19074) supporting his research. V. M. is supported by the Exascale Computing Project (17-SC-20-SC), a collaborative effort of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory is supported under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. V. M. also acknowledges partial support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) from Grant Nos. OAC-1550436, AST-1516150, PHY-1607520, PHY-1305730, PHY-1707946, and PHY-1726215 to Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). The shown numerical simulations have been conducted on infrastructure of the Red Española de Supercomputación (AECT-2020-1-0014) as well as of the University of Valencia Tirant and Lluis-Vives supercomputers.

Keywords

Magnetic fields
Methods: numerical
Plasmas

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10.1051/0004-6361/202038907

Cite this

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title = "Computational general relativistic force-free electrodynamics: I. Multi-coordinate implementation and testing",

abstract = "General relativistic force-free electrodynamics is one possible plasma-limit employed to analyze energetic outflows in which strong magnetic fields are dominant over all inertial phenomena. The amazing images of black hole (BH) shadows from the Galactic Center and the M87 galaxy provide a first direct glimpse into the physics of accretion flows in the most extreme environments of the universe. The efficient extraction of energy in the form of collimated outflows or jets from a rotating BH is directly linked to the topology of the surrounding magnetic field. We aim at providing a tool to numerically model the dynamics of such fields in magnetospheres around compact objects, such as BHs and neutron stars. To do so, we probe their role in the formation of high energy phenomena such as magnetar flares and the highly variable teraelectronvolt emission of some active galactic nuclei. In this work, we present numerical strategies capable of modeling fully dynamical force-free magnetospheres of compact astrophysical objects. We provide implementation details and extensive testing of our implementation of general relativistic force-free electrodynamics in Cartesian and spherical coordinates using the infrastructure of the EINSTEIN TOOLKIT. The employed hyperbolic/parabolic cleaning of numerical errors with full general relativistic compatibility allows for fast advection of numerical errors in dynamical spacetimes. Such fast advection of divergence errors significantly improves the stability of the general relativistic force-free electrodynamics modeling of BH magnetospheres.",

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Computational general relativistic force-free electrodynamics: I. Multi-coordinate implementation and testing

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