The Active Flux method for the Euler equations on Cartesian grids

Overview & Synopsis

Active Flux is an extension of the Finite Volume method and additionally incorporates point values located at cell boundaries. This gives rise to a globally continuous approximation of the solution. The method is third-order accurate. We demonstrate that a new semi-discrete Active Flux method (first described in Abgrall&Barsukow, 2023 for one space dimension) can easily be used to solve nonlinear hyperbolic systems in multiple dimensions, such as the compressible Euler equations of inviscid hydrodynamics. Originally, the Active Flux method emerged as a fully discrete method, and required an exact or approximate evolution operator for the point value update. For nonlinear problems such an operator is often difficult to obtain, in particular for multiple spatial dimensions. With the new approach it becomes possible to leave behind these difficulties. We introduce a multi-dimensional limiting strategy and demonstrate the performance of the new method on both Riemann problems and subsonic flows.