Radiative heat transfer equations including heat conduction are considered
in the small mean free path limit. Rigorous results on the asymptotic proce
dure leading to the equilibrium diffusion equation for the temperature are
given. Moreover, the nonlinear Milne problem describing the boundary layer
is investigated and an existence result is proven. An asymptotic preserving
scheme for the radiative transfer equations with the diffusion scaling is
developed. The scheme is based on the asymptotic analysis. It works uniform
ly for all ranges of mean free paths. Numerical results for different physi
cal situations are presented.