A SPHERICAL-HARMONICS SOLUTION FOR RADIATIVE-TRANSFER PROBLEMS WITH REFLECTING BOUNDARIES AND INTERNAL SOURCES

The spherical-harmonics method, including some recent improvements, is used to establish the complete solution for a general problem concern ing radiative transfer in a plane-parallel medium. An L-th order Legen dre expansion of the phase function is allowed, internal sources and r eflecting boundaries are included in the model, and since a non-normal ly incident beam is impinging on one surface, all components in a Four ier decomposition of the intensity are required in the solution. Numer ical results for two test problems are reported. (C) 1998 Elsevier Sci ence Ltd. All rights reserved.