Algorithms for Relativistic Lattice Boltzmann

My name is Daniele Simeoni and I am currently a third year PhD student in the framework of European’s Union Horizon 2020 programme STIMULATE: a Joint Doctorate programme with awarding institutions the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Università degli studi di Ferrara and University of Cyprus.
I did both my Bachelor and Master studies in Physics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, and I graduated with a thesis on the theoretical analysis of the deformation of a bacterial droplet in a shearing emulsion.

My research interests lie in the field of fluid dynamics. I am particularly interested in the use of computational methods (mainly lattice Boltzmann algorithms) to simulate all kinds of fluid systems, mainly active matter systems, emulsions, and complex turbulent flows.

Why I became a PhD student

I got the chance to be selected for the STIMULATE programme, and since then I’ve been working on a particular topic in Fluid Dynamics: the development, refinement and better understanding of numerical schemes for the simulation of relativistic flows. This was a topic I had not even considered before starting the PhD, but It peaked my interest since it was a combination of all the things I was searching for my career: a novel topic, with some numerical workload involved and yet still tied to physics.

In practice, the development of relativistic kinetic schemes consists in trying to join the typical algorithms used in classical fluid dynamics (mainly the kinetic schemes that go under the name of Lattice Boltzmann Methods) with Einstein’s theory of Relativity. This effort is motivated by the array of possible applications, that range from the typical systems that can be found in Astrophysics to the study of Plasmas in Nuclear physics and Electron Flows in solid state physics.

What will I do during my PhD

In the past years I have focused on the algorithmic refinement of kinetic solvers for the simulation of relativistic hydrodynamics (via their generalization to a generic number of spatial dimensions, calibration of transport coefficients, and benchmarking).
Lastly I have extended our in-house built numerical method to a range of non-hydrodynamic regimes, which might be functional for the simulation of rarefied relativistic gases.
Furthermore, we have developed a Lattice Kinetic Scheme for the simulation of radiation fields, which are important when dealing with a number of astrophysical phenomena like for example Neutron Star Mergers.
In the next months I will be focusing on the extension of this last scheme to General Relativity, plus I have started being interested in Quantum Computers, so I will deepen my knowledge on the subject.

Best regards
Daniele Simeoni