Polarized radiative transfer in a particle-laden semi-transparent medium via a vector Monte Carlo method

A vector Monte Carlo method (VMCM) is developed to model the transfer of polarized radiation in optically thick, multiple scattering, particle-laden semi-transparent media. A comprehensive description of the theoretical background of the general VMC algorithm is introduced. The model is validated against reference results in the case of a plane-parallel geometry and applied to the simulation of a nephelometric experiment to derive the effective Mueller matrix of the complete system. Details and various features of the numerical model are discussed. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.