The influence of numerical diffusion on the solution of the radiative transfer equations

We investigate the explicit numerical solution strategies of multi-dimensional radiative transfer equations which are commonly used, e.g., to determine the radiation emerging from astrophysical objects surrounded by absorbing and scattering, matter. For explicit grid solvers, we identify numerical diffusion as a severe source of error in first-order discretization schemes, underestimated in former work about radiative transfer. Using the simple example of a beam propagating through vacuum, we illustrate the influence of the diffusion on the solution and discuss various techniques to reduce it. In view of the large required storage for implicit solvers, we propose to use second-order explicit grid techniques to solve 3D radiative transfer problems. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.