The Finite Volume Method For Vector Radiative Transfer Equation

With the development of the technologies such as aerospace remote sensing, retrieval of aerosol particles and biological tissue imaging technology, which put forward higher requirements for the accuracy of the radiative transfer equation. The traditional way dealing with the radiative transfer problem often uses the Scalar Radiative Transfer Equation( SRTE ), which takes the light as a scalar amount. But without take into account the polarization of light, this approach cannot accurately describe the transmission of light in the medium. To calculate the transmission of light in the medium accurately and completely, it is necessary to use the Vector Radiative Transfer Equation( VRTE ), which uses four Stokes amounts to describe the state of the light considering polarization effects. In the area of radiative heat transfer, polarization effects of radiation have not attracted sufficient attention at present. In this thesis, we will give an introduction to the polarization and Vector Radiative Transfer Equation, and wish people to have a new understanding of this.The main contents of this thesis are:1. The principle of polarization and the basic theory of the VRTE were reviewed.2. We extended the FVM to the calculations for VRTE, and named Vector Finite Volume Method(VFVM). The corresponding mathematical model was established and the calculating program was complied for one-dimensional VRTE. By comparison with the data in other literature , VFVM was proved to be a valid model.3. The relative error between FVM and VFVM was compared and analyzed. For different optical thickness, different circumferential angles, different albedo, and different states of the incident polarized light, the influence on the error was analyzed. The computational efficiency of the method was compared between FVM and VFVM.