ADAPTIVE-GRID RADIATION HYDRODYNAMICS WITH TITAN

We have developed a code which solves the coupled sets of radiation transfer and fluid dynamics equations (time dependent in one spatial dimension) by employing a fully implicit adaptive grid procedure to detect, resolve, and track the relevant physical structures. We have formulated TITAN as a general purpose code, written it in a user friendly manner, and documented it in detail. This code is available to the (astrophysical) community for the application to a broad variety of computational problems both as a research and a teaching tool. We demonstrate the code's power and versatility in a series of simple problems. They range from pure hydrodynamics tests (shock tubes and blast waves), via radiation transfer tests (radiative heating and cooling), to radiation hydrodynamics tests (radiative shocks and blast waves). These can be viewed as predecessors to a host of interesting astrophysical problems such as nova and supernova explosions and light curves, accretion onto compact objects, star formation, and stellar variability.