DOE OSTI · 3367521
thornado+FLASH-X: A Hybrid Discontinuous Galerkin–Implicit-explicit and Finite-volume Framework for Neutrino-radiation Hydrodynamics in Core-collapse Supernovae
Abstract
We present neutrino-transport algorithms implemented in the toolkit for high-order neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics (thornado) and their coupling to self-gravitating hydrodynamics within the adaptive mesh refinement–based multiphysics simulation framework FLASH-X. thornado, developed primarily for simulations of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), employs a spectral, six-species two-moment formulation with algebraic closure and special-relativistic observer corrections accurate to $\mathcal{O}(v/c)$, and uses discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for phase-space discretization combined with implicit-explicit time stepping. A key development is a nonlinear neutrino–matter coupling algorithm based on nested fixed-point iteration with Anderson acceleration, enabling fully implicit treatment of collisional processes, including energy-coupling interactions such as neutrino–electron scattering and pair production. Coupling to finite-volume (FV) hydrodynamics is achieved through a hybrid DG-FV representation of the fluid variables and operator-split evolution within FLASH-X. The implementation is verified using basic transport tests with idealized opacities and relaxation and deleptonization problems with tabulated microphysics. Spherically symmetric CCSN simulations demonstrate accuracy and robustness of the coupled scheme, including close agreement with the CCSN simulation code Chimera. An axisymmetric CCSN simulation further demonstrates the viability of DG-based neutrino transport for multidimensional supernova modeling within FLASH-X. thornado’s neutrino-transport solver is GPU-enabled using OpenMP offloading or OpenACC, and all CCSN applications included in this work use the GPU implementation. Together, these results establish a foundation for future enhancements in physics fidelity, numerical algorithms, and computational performance, for increasingly realistic large-scale CCSN simulations.
Keep this discovery
Explore connections, maps & timelines
Endeve, Eirik [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000312519507), Mewes, Vassilios [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS)] (ORCID:0000000158698542), Harris, J. Austin [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS)] (ORCID:0000000330237140), Laiu, M. Paul [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000222156968), Chu, Ran [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)] (ORCID:000000017951049X), Fromm, Steven A. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS)] (ORCID:000000023591123X), Mezzacappa, Anthony [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000198169741), Messer, O. E. Bronson [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000253585415), Hix, W. Raphael [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000294819126), Bruenn, Stephen W. [Florida Atlantic Univ., Boca Raton, FL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000309995297), Lentz, Eric J. [Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:0000000252310532), Weide, Klaus [Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000198699750), Cardall, Christian Y. [Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)] (ORCID:000000020086105X), Almgren, Ann S. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)] (ORCID:000000032103312X), Dubey, Anshu [Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Univ. of Chicago, IL (United States)] (ORCID:0000000332997426), Couch, Sean M. [Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)] (ORCID:0000000250805996), Mösta, Philipp [Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands)] (ORCID:0000000293711447), Willcox, Donald E. [Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Stellar Science, Vienna, VA (United States)] (ORCID:0000000323005165). 2026-05-15. thornado+FLASH-X: A Hybrid Discontinuous Galerkin–Implicit-explicit and Finite-volume Framework for Neutrino-radiation Hydrodynamics in Core-collapse Supernovae. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4365%2Fae57ad
Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.