Formulation of the multiple anisotropic scattering process in two dimensions for anisotropic source radiation

Abstract

SUMMARY The radiative transfer theory (RTT) describes the energy transport through a random heterogeneous medium, neglecting phase information. It provides an adequate framework for modelling high-frequency seismogram envelopes. For isotropic scattering and sources, the radiative transfer equation (RTE) has been formulated analytically and numerically simulated using Monte Carlo methods for acoustic and elastic media. Here, we derive an exact analytical solution of the RTE in 2-D space for the acoustic case, including anisotropic scattering for a anisotropic point-like impulsive source. For this purpose, we generalize the path integral method, which has been used before in the isotropic case, to take into account the anisotropy of both the source radiation pattern and scattering processes, simultaneously. Then we obtain a general solution, which is written in a closed form in the Fourier space. To illustrate the theoretical results, we compute the full space and time evolution of the specific intensity for an arbitrary case. We also compare the time traces computed from our general solution with cases in which the source and/or the scattering process are isotropic. The importance of taking into account both anisotropies simultaneously becomes obvious in our examples. We also show that at long lapse time, our example approaches the solution of the diffusion equation.