07/08/2019 Riemann Solvers

Athena Documentation

Riemann Solvers
Documentation/UserGuide/Riemann Solvers

The Riemann solver is the method by which time-averaged fluxes of all conserved quantities
are calculated at cell interfaces, see section 4.3 in the ApJS Method Paper. There are entire
monographs written on exact and approximate Riemann solvers for hydrodynamics and
MHD (e.g. E.F. Toro, Riemann Solvers and Numerical Methods for Fluid Dynamics, 1999).
References to “Toro” below refer to this book.

Along with Reconstruction and the Integrator, the Riemann solver is one of the most
important algorithmic elements of a Godunov scheme. For these reason, a variety of choices
for the solver are implemented in Athena.

The Riemann solvers are implemented in functions in the directory /athena/src/rsolvers/

To specify the Riemann solver in Athena, configure the code with

% configure --with-flux=choice

where the table below gives the valid choices implemented in Athena.

Choice Comment Physics Reference

Hydro and
force Toro’s FORCE flux Toro section 7.4.2
MHD
two-
Two-shock approximation Hydro Toro section 9.4.2
shock
exact eact solver Hydro Toro chapter 4
Hydro and
hlle Harten-Lax-van Leer with Einfeldt fix Toro section 10.3
MHD
hllc Harten-Lax-van Leer with contact Hydro Toro section 10.4
Harten-Lax-van Leer with contact and Miyoshi & Kusano, JCP,
hlld MHD
Alfven mode 208, 305
Hydro and
Roe Roe’s linearized solver Toro chapter 11
MHD

For hydrodynamics, use of the Roe or HLLC solver is strongly recommended.

For MHD, use of the Roe or HLLD solver is strongly recommended.

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07/08/2019 Riemann Solvers

The exact solvers are useful for testing, but are generally too slow for applications, and often
do not increase the accuracy of solutions in any case.

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