1998/10/31 by Alexei O. Razoumov, Alexei Razoumov, Douglas Scott +1 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.02775.x
12 pages, 8 figures, uses mn.sty, animated figure available at http://www.astro.ubc.ca/~razoumov/gallery.html
arxiv created 1999/04/28 · openalex publication_date 1999/10/21 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A numerical scheme is proposed for the solution of the three-dimensional (3D) radiative transfer equation with variable optical depth. We show that time-dependent ray tracing is an attractive choice for simulations of astrophysical ionization fronts, particularly when one is interested in covering a wide range of optical depths within a three-dimensional clumpy medium. Our approach combines the explicit advection of radiation variables with the implicit solution of local rate equations given the radiation field at each point. Our scheme is well suited to the solution of problems for which line transfer is not important, and could, in principle, be extended to those situations also. This scheme allows us to calculate the propagation of supersonic ionization fronts into an inhomogeneous medium. The approach can be easily implemented on a single workstation and should also be fully parallelizable.