An overview of grid-based numerical methods used in relativistic hydrodynamics (RHD) and magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) is presented. Special emphasis is put on a comprehensive review of the application of high-resolution shock-capturing methods. Results of a set of demanding test bench simulations obtained with different numerical methods are compared in an attempt to assess the present capabilities and limits of the various numerical strategies. Applications to three astrophysical phenomena are briefly discussed to motivate the need for and to demonstrate the success of RHD and RMHD simulations in their understanding. The review further provides FORTRAN programs to compute the exact solution of the Riemann problem in RMHD, and to simulate 1D RMHD flows in Cartesian coordinates.
Electronic supplementary material: Supplementary material is available for this article at 10.1007/lrca-2015-3.
Keywords: Relativistic hydrodynamics (RHD); Relativistic magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD).