Time evolution of photon-pulse propagation in scattering and absorbing media: The dynamic radiative transfer system

Abstract

A new dynamic-system approach to the problem of radiative transfer inside scattering and absorbing media is presented, directly based on first-hand physical principles. This method, the Dynamic Radiative Transfer System (DRTS), employs a dynamical system formality using a global sparse matrix, which characterizes the physical, optical and geometrical properties of the material-volume of interest. The new system state is generated by the above time-independent matrix, using simple matrix-vector multiplication for each subsequent time step. DRTS is capable of calculating accurately the time evolution of photon propagation in media of complex structure and shape. The flexibility of DRTS allows the integration of time-dependent sources, boundary conditions, different media and several optical phenomena like reflection and refraction in a unified and consistent way. Various examples of DRTS simulation results are presented for ultra-fast light pulse 3-D propagation, demonstrating greatly reduced computational cost and resource requirements compared to other methods.