We present a new special relativistic hydrodynamics (SRHD) code capable of handling coexisting ultra-relativistically hot and non-relativistically cold gases. We achieve this by designing a new algorithm for conversion between primitive and conserved variables in the SRHD solver, which incorporates a realistic ideal-gas equation of state covering both the relativistic and non-relativistic regimes. The code can handle problems involving a Lorentz factor as high as 106 and optimally avoid the catastrophic cancellation. In addition, we have integrated this new SRHD solver into the code gamer (https://github.com/gamer-project/gamer) to support adaptive mesh refinement and hybrid OpenMP/MPI/GPU parallelization. It achieves a peak performance of 7 × 107 cell updates per second on a single Tesla P100 GPU and scales well to 2048 GPUs. We apply this code to two interesting astrophysical applications: (a) an asymmetric explosion source on the relativistic blast wave and (b) the flow acceleration and limb-brightening of relativistic jets.

The Fanaroff–Riley Class II radio galaxy Cygnus A hosts jets that produce radio emission, X-ray cavities, cocoon shocks, and X-ray hotspots, where the jet interacts with the ICM. Surrounding one hotspot is a peculiar “hole” feature, which appears as a deficit in X-ray emission. We used relativistic hydrodynamic simulations of a collimated jet interacting with an inclined interface between lobe and cluster plasma to model the basic processes that may lead to such a feature. We found that the jet reflects off of the interface into a broad, turbulent flow back out into the lobe, which is dominated by gas stripped from the interface at first and from the intracluster medium itself at later times. We produced simple models of X-ray emission from the ICM, the hotspot, and the reflected jet to show that a hole of emission surrounding the hotspot as seen in Cygnus A may be produced by Doppler de-boosting of the emission from the reflected jet, as seen by an observer with a sight line nearly along the axis of the outgoing material.