Polarized light transfer above a reflecting surface

摘要

AbstractThe existence and uniqueness are established for the solution of the equation of transfer of polarized light in a homogeneous atmosphere of finite optical thickness, assuming reflection by the planetary surface. A generalLp‐space formulation is adopted. The boundary value problem is first written as a vector‐valued integral equation. Using monotonicity properties of the spectral radii of the integral operators involved as well as recent half‐range completeness results for kinetic equations with reflective boundary conditions, the present results follow as a coro