Moving-mesh radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of wind-reprocessed transients

Abstract

ABSTRACT Motivated by recent theoretical work on tidal disruption events and other peculiar transients, we present moving-mesh radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of radiative luminosity emitted by a central source being reprocessed by a wind-like outflow. We couple the moving-mesh hydrodynamic code jet with our newly developed radiation module based on mixed-frame grey flux-limited diffusion with implicit timestep update. This allows us to study the self-consistent multidimensional radiation-hydrodynamic evolution over more than 10 orders of magnitude in both space and time in a single run. We simulate an optically thick spherical wind with constant or evolving mass-loss rate, which is irradiated by a central isotropic or angularly dependent radiation source. Our spherically symmetric simulations confirm previous analytic results by identifying different stages of radiation reprocessing: radiation trapped in the wind, diffusing out through the wind, and reaching constant maximum attenuation. We find that confining the central radiation source in a cone with moderate opening angles decrease up to one order of magnitude the early flux along sightlines oriented away from the direction of radiation injection but that the reprocessed radiation becomes isotropic roughly after one lateral diffusion time through the ejecta. We discuss further applications and guidelines for the use of our novel radiation-hydrodynamics tool in the context of transient modelling.