CAPABILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF A CURRENT FORTRAN IMPLEMENTATION OF THE T-MATRIX METHOD FOR RANDOMLY ORIENTED, ROTATIONALLY SYMMETRICAL SCATTERERS

We describe in detail a software implementation of a current version o f the T-matrix method for computing light scattering by polydisperse, randomly oriented, rotationally symmetric particles. The FORTRAN T-mat rix codes are publicly available on the World Wide Web at http://www.g iss.nasa.gov/similar to crmin. We give all necessary formulas, describ e input and output parameters, discuss numerical aspects of T-matrix c omputations, demonstrate the capabilities and limitations of the codes , and discuss the performance of the codes in comparison with other av ailable numerical approaches. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.