TIRT Study No. 9: Stokes Vector Formalism for the Source Radiance of an OpaqueBody

摘要

A simple and rigorous formalism is presented for describing the incoherentradiative properties of absorption, emission, and scattering of an opaque body in local thermodynamic equilibrium; polarization, inelastic scattering, and applied magnetic field effects are treated in full. The radiative behavior of such a body is shown to be completely characterized by the local bispectral bidirectional reflectivity matrix. Expressions for the emitted and reflected Stokes vectors of the source radiation are given in terms of this matrix. Use is made of the most general forms of the reciprocal relations and Kirchhoff's law; derivations for these are also provided.