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Subgrid modeling for relativistic magnetohydrodynamics with machine learning

William Cook and Sebastiano Bernuzzi

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063010 – Published 4 September, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/t81t-vx23

Abstract

Resolving the impact of magnetic field instabilities in triggering small scale turbulent flow and the associated rearrangement of the field is of critical importance in understanding multimessenger observables in binary neutron star mergers and angular momentum transport in neutron stars and accretion disks. Direct simulation of these instabilities are unfeasible, however large-eddy simulations can incorporate the impact of this turbulence with a subgrid model. We present the first machine-learning-based subgrid model for special relativistic magnetohydrodynamics, trained using a neural network. We demonstrate its performance in online simulations of the 3D Kelvin-Helmholtz instability through both a priori and a posteriori tests. Evaluated in a low resolution simulation, our model captures magnetic field amplification of a simulation at 4 times the resolution with a speedup factor of 44. This demonstrates the applicability of such methods in general relativistic simulations of neutron star mergers and other scenarios.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 063010– Published 4 September, 2026
  • Received 10 July 2026
  • Accepted 11 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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