HERACLES: a three dimensional radiation hydrodynamics code

¹ CEA-Saclay, DSM/DAPNIA/Service d'Astrophysique, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette Cedex, France
² AIM, Unité Mixte de Recherche CEA, CNRS, Université Paris VII, UMR No. 7158, France

Abstract

HERACLES is a new code that solve the radiative transfer coupled to the hydrodynamics. The radiation is describe by a moment model using the M₁ closure relation which allow to preserve large angular anisotropy in the radiation field. We present here the model, its numerical implementation and some test cases. The tests and the comparison with other methods show the good accuracy of our model in various situations. The results show that HERACLES is accurate in both the diffusion and the transport limit and could therefor be used in various astrophysical fields such as radiative shocks, fragmentation and formation of dense cores in the interstellar medium, protoplanetary discs, jets...