NEW APPROACH TO THE POLARIZED RADIATIVE TRANSFER PROBLEM

摘要

This paper presents a new general approach to solve the complete polarized radiative transfer problem. Our approach uses analysis of the inherent features of the scattering matrix of an isotropic scattering medium to simplify the analytical treatment of the problem. Water clouds, mists, atmosphere, and ocean can be considered as optically isotropic media. We introduce characteristic small parameters connected with off-diagonal elements of the scattering matrix and develop the perturbation theory for the vector radiative transfer equations (VRTEs). The approximate Green's function matrix is obtained and justified. The elements of this matrix obey the corresponding shortened basic equations, which are much simpler than the original VRTEs. The basic equation of the scalar radiative transfer theory is one of them. The acuracy of the developed approximation is shown to be good enough for a lot of applied problem. Matrices with strong elongated phase functions which are characteristic for atmosphere and ocean are given the main attention. Our new form of the VRTEs provides quickly convergent step by step computation method that gives high accuracy even after 2-3 steps. The obtained approximate Green's function matrix serves as zero-order approximation. Some aspects connected with the developed approach are discussed in detail. One of them is difference between the scalar and vector intensities. The approach as applied to the Rayleigh scattering law is also considered. [References: 26]