General relativistic neutrino transport in stellar collapse

Abstract

The radiative hydrodynamic equations for a coupled system of neutrino radiation and matter within a fully general relativistic framework are derived. The system is assumed to be spherically symmetric, and the neutrino component amenable to solution via angular moment methods. The neutrinos are not assumed to be in equilibrium with the matter. The form of these equations is especially applicable to the numerical solution of problems in stellar collapse and neutron star formation. In such problems, general relativistic effects are of possibly critical importance but do not dominate to the extent that use of a diagonal form of the metric causes problems.