Analytical approaches to the delta-Eddington model of the radiative transfer through vertically inhomogeneous optical depths (Q2470306)

The author describes analytical methods for the resolution of the 1D monochromatic delta-Eddington radiation transfer equation through a vertically inhomogeneous medium. This integro-differential equation is written as \(-dI/\beta _{e}ds=I-J\), where \(I\) is the light energy per unit solid angle, \(\beta _{e}\) is the extinction coefficient of the medium and \(J\) is the source term which involves the phase function. The starting point is the separation of variables for \(I(\tau ,\mu )=Z(\tau )M(\tau ,\mu )\), \(M\) being further searched as a linear expression of \(\mu \): \(M(\tau ,\mu )=1+m(\tau )\mu \). The author proves that \(Z\) is the solution of a linear second-order ode: \(Z^{\prime \prime }-\gamma ^{2}Z=R\). Here \(\gamma \) is a function of the so-called scaled optical thickness. The expression of the solution of the homogeneous equation associated to the above ode is given through analytic computations. \(m\) is proved to be the solution of a Riccati equation. The author uses a Liouville-Green approximation among other tools. In the last parts of the paper, the author presents some examples where numerical computations complete the above analytic expressions.