Application of nonlinear Krylov acceleration to radiative transfer problems

The iterative solution technique used for radiative transfer is normally nested, with outer thermal iterations and inner transport iterations. We implement a nonlinear Krylov acceleration (NKA) method in the PDT code for radiative transfer problems that breaks nesting, resulting in more thermal iterations but significantly fewer total inner transport iterations. Using the metric of total inner transport iterations, we investigate a crooked-pipe-like problem and a pseudo-shock-tube problem. Using only sweep preconditioning, we compare NKA against a typical inner / outer method employing GMRES / Newton and find NKA to be comparable or superior. Finally, we demonstrate the efficacy of applying diffusion-based preconditioning to grey problems in conjunction with NKA. (authors)