Conservative Moment Equations for Neutrino Radiation Transport with Limited Relativity
Abstract
We derive conservative, multidimensional, energy-dependent moment equations for neutrino transport in core-collapse supernovae and related astrophysical systems, with particular attention to the consistency of conservative four-momentum and lepton number transport equations. After taking angular moments of conservative formulations of the general relativistic Boltzmann equation, we specialize to a conformally flat spacetime, which also serves as the basis for four further limits. Two of these---the multidimensional special relativistic case, and a conformally flat formulation of the spherically symmetric general relativistic case---are given in appendices for the sake of comparison with extant literature. The third limit is a weak-field, `pseudo-Newtonian' approach \citep{kim_etal_2009,kim_etal_2012} in which the source of the gravitational potential includes the trace of the stress-energy tensor (rather than just the mass density), and all orders in fluid velocity are retained. Our primary interest here is in the fourth limit: `' moment equations for use in conjunction with Newtonian self-gravitating hydrodynamics. We show that the concept of `' transport requires care when dealing with both conservative four-momentum and conservative lepton number transport, and present two self-consistent options: `-plus' transport, in which an energy equation combines with an momentum equation to give an number equation; and `-minus' transport, in which an energy equation combines with an momentum equation to give an number equation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1212.4064,
title = {Conservative Moment Equations for Neutrino Radiation Transport with Limited Relativity},
author = {Eirik Endeve and Christian Y. Cardall and Anthony Mezzacappa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.4064},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal