High-order fully general-relativistic hydrodynamics: new approaches and tests

We present a new approach for achieving high-order convergence in fully general-relativistic hydrodynamic simulations. The approach is implemented in WhiskyTHC, a new code that makes use of state-of-the-art numerical schemes and was key in achieving, for the first time, higher than second-order convergence in the calculation of the gravitational radiation from inspiraling binary neutron stars (Radice et al 2014 Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 437 L46–L50). Here, we give a detailed description of the algorithms employed and present results obtained for a series of classical tests involving isolated neutron stars. In addition, using the gravitational-wave emission from the late-inspiral and merger of binary neutron stars, we make a detailed comparison between the results obtained with the new code and those obtained when using standard second-order schemes commonly employed for matter simulations in numerical relativity. We find that even at moderate resolutions and for binaries with large compactness, the phase accuracy is improved by a factor 50 or more. (paper)