High order numerical simulations of the Richtmyer Meshkov instability in a relativistic fluid

Abstract

We study the Richtmyer--Meshkov (RM) instability of a relativistic perfect fluid by means of high order numerical simulations with adaptive mesh refinement (AMR). The numerical scheme adopts a finite volume Weighted Essentially Non-Oscillatory (WENO) reconstruction to increase accuracy in space, a local space-time discontinuous Galerkin predictor method to obtain high order of accuracy in time and a high order one-step time update scheme together with a "cell-by-cell" space-time AMR strategy with time-accurate local time stepping. In this way, third order accurate (both in space and in time) numerical simulations of the RM instability are performed, spanning a wide parameter space. We present results both for the case in which a light fluid penetrates into a higher density one (Atwood number $A>0$), and for the case in which a heavy fluid penetrates into a lower density one (Atwood number $A<0$). We find that, for large Lorentz factors γ_s of the incident shock wave, the relativistic RM instability is substantially weakened and ultimately suppressed. More specifically, the growth rate of the RM instability in the linear phase has a local maximum which occurs at a critical value of γ_s ~ [1.2,2]. Moreover, we have also revealed a genuine relativistic effect, absent in Newtonian hydrodynamics, which arises in three dimensional configurations with a non-zero velocity component tangent to the incident shock front. In this case, the RM instability is strongly affected, typically resulting in less efficient mixing of the fluid.