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Main Authors: Giron, Itamar, Krief, Menahem, Stone, Nicholas C., Steinberg, Elad
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05120
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author Giron, Itamar
Krief, Menahem
Stone, Nicholas C.
Steinberg, Elad
author_facet Giron, Itamar
Krief, Menahem
Stone, Nicholas C.
Steinberg, Elad
contents Radiation-hydrodynamics (RHD) determines the bulk evolution and observable emission in a wide variety of high-energy astrophysical phenomena. Due to their complexity, RHD problems must usually be studied through numerical simulation. We have extended the publicly available RICH code, which previously solved the equations of RHD in the limit of grey flux-limited diffusion (FLD), to operate with a multigroup FLD solver. RICH is a semi-Lagrangian code that solves the equations of RHD on an unstructured moving mesh, and is the first multigroup RHD moving mesh code, making it uniquely applicable to problems with extreme dynamic range and dynamically important radiation forces. We validate our multigroup module against multiple analytic benchmarks, including a novel test of the RHD Doppler term. The computational efficiency of the code is aided by a novel scheme to accelerate convergence in optically thick cells by limiting the absorption coefficients. Finally, we apply multigroup \textsc{rich} in a pilot three dimensional study of a stellar tidal disruption event (TDE), using a $10^4 M_\odot$ intermediate-mass black hole. Our simulations self-consistently produce a bright early-time X-ray flash prior to peak optical/UV light, in qualitative agreement with post-processing of (grey) RICH simulations of supermassive black hole TDEs, as well as X-ray observations of the TDE AT 2022dsb.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05120
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multigroup Radiation Diffusion on a Moving Mesh: Implementation in RICH and Application to Tidal Disruption Events
Giron, Itamar
Krief, Menahem
Stone, Nicholas C.
Steinberg, Elad
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Computational Physics
Radiation-hydrodynamics (RHD) determines the bulk evolution and observable emission in a wide variety of high-energy astrophysical phenomena. Due to their complexity, RHD problems must usually be studied through numerical simulation. We have extended the publicly available RICH code, which previously solved the equations of RHD in the limit of grey flux-limited diffusion (FLD), to operate with a multigroup FLD solver. RICH is a semi-Lagrangian code that solves the equations of RHD on an unstructured moving mesh, and is the first multigroup RHD moving mesh code, making it uniquely applicable to problems with extreme dynamic range and dynamically important radiation forces. We validate our multigroup module against multiple analytic benchmarks, including a novel test of the RHD Doppler term. The computational efficiency of the code is aided by a novel scheme to accelerate convergence in optically thick cells by limiting the absorption coefficients. Finally, we apply multigroup \textsc{rich} in a pilot three dimensional study of a stellar tidal disruption event (TDE), using a $10^4 M_\odot$ intermediate-mass black hole. Our simulations self-consistently produce a bright early-time X-ray flash prior to peak optical/UV light, in qualitative agreement with post-processing of (grey) RICH simulations of supermassive black hole TDEs, as well as X-ray observations of the TDE AT 2022dsb.
title Multigroup Radiation Diffusion on a Moving Mesh: Implementation in RICH and Application to Tidal Disruption Events
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Computational Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05120