SPIRO: a code that couples Monte Carlo photons to relativistic hydrodynamics - Applications to hot astrophysical plasmas

Sammanfattning

This thesis introduces SPIRO, a simulation code that couples Monte Carlo photon transport with relativistic hydrodynamics to more accurately simulate astrophysical plasmas and to study how photon-plasma interaction feedback affects their evolution. SPIRO consists of a photon component which stochastically propagates through and interacts with a plasma component, whose internal dynamics are handled by the hydrodynamics solver GAMMA. Simulations of shock propagation, in plasmas at moderate to high optical depth, reveal that the choice of one-way or two-way coupling between the photons and the plasma results in markedly different shock structure and photon spectra. These results highlight the significance of the photon component in hot plasmas, as well as the problems that can occur when its influence is not properly taken into account.