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Afterglows of gamma-ray bursts are observed to produce light curves with theflux following power law evolution in time. However, recent observations revealbright flares at times on the order of minutes to days. One proposedexplanation for these flares is the interaction of a relativistic blast wavewith a circumburst density transition. In this paper, we model this type ofinteraction computationally in one and two dimensions, using a relativistichydrodynamics code with adaptive mesh refinement called ram, and analyticallyin one dimension. We simulate a blast wave traveling in a stellar windenvironment that encounters a sudden change in density, followed by ahomogeneous medium, and compute the observed radiation using a synchrotronmodel. We show that flares are not observable for an encounter with a suddendensity increase, such as a wind termination shock, nor for an encounter with asudden density decrease. Furthermore, by extending our analysis to twodimensions, we are able to resolve the spreading, collimation, and edge effectsof the blast wave as it encounters the change in circumburst medium. In allcases considered in this paper, we find that a flare will not be observed forany of the density changes studied.

GRB Afterglow Blast Wave Encountering Sudden Circumburst Density Change Produces No Flares