Residual distribution schemes for Bondi-Hoyle accretion

Black hole accretion is a key component in astrophysical phenomena such as gamma-ray bursts and quasars. As a step towards understanding such phenomena, accurate and efficient computational methods for simulating gas dynamics in the presence of black holes must be developed. In this work a residual distribution scheme on unstructured grids is constructed for solving the general relativistic version of the compressible Euler equations. In particular, we simulate Bondi-Hoyle accretion onto a Schwarzschild black hole. Presented here are preliminary results in a larger effort to develop high-order methods on unstructured meshes for general relativistic flows. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)