Asymptotic-preserving and energy stable dynamical low-rank approximation for thermal radiative transfer equations

The thermal radiative transfer equations model temperature evolution through a background medium as a result of radiation. When a large number of particles are absorbed in a short time scale, the dynamics tend to a non-linear diffusion-type equation called the Rosseland approximation. The main challenges for constructing numerical schemes that exhibit the correct limiting behavior are posed by the solution’s high-dimensional phase space and multi-scale effects. In this work, we propose an asymptotic-preserving and rank-adaptive dynamical low-rank approximation scheme based on the macro-micro decomposition of the particle density and a modified augmented basis-update & Galerkin integrator. We show that this scheme, for linear particle emission by the material, dissipates energy over time under a step size restriction that captures the hyperbolic and parabolic CFL conditions. We demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in a series of numerical experiments.