Numerical tests and properties of waves in radiating fluids

We discuss the properties of an analytical solution for waves in radiating fluids, with a view towards its implementation as a quantitative test of radiation hydrodynamics codes. A homogeneous radiating fluid in local thermodynamic equilibrium is periodically driven at the boundary of a one-dimensional domain, and the solution describes the propagation of the waves thus excited. Two modes are excited for a given driving frequency, generally referred to as a radiative acoustic wave and a radiative diffusion wave. While the analytical solution is well known, several features are highlighted here that require care during its numerical implementation. We compare the solution in a wide range of parameter space to a numerical integration with a Lagrangian radiation hydrodynamics code. Our most significant observation is that flux-limited diffusion does not preserve causality for waves on a homogeneous background.