A new scheme of causal viscous hydrodynamics for relativistic heavy-ion collisions: A Riemann solver for quark-gluon plasma

In this article, we present a state-of-the-art algorithm for solving the relativistic viscous hydrodynamics equation with the QCD equation of state. The numerical method is based on the second-order Godunov method and has less numerical dissipation, which is crucial in describing of quark-gluon plasma in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. We apply the algorithm to several numerical test problems such as sound wave propagation, shock tube and blast wave problems. In sound wave propagation, the intrinsic numerical viscosity is measured and its explicit expression is shown, which is the second-order of spatial resolution both in the presence and absence of physical viscosity. The expression of the numerical viscosity can be used to determine the maximum cell size in order to accurately measure the effect of physical viscosity in the numerical simulation. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.