Thursday, March 21, 2013

1303.4998 (Juergen Steinacker et al.)

Three-Dimensional Dust Radiative Transfer    [PDF]

Juergen Steinacker, Maarten Baes, Karl Gordon
Cosmic dust is present in many astrophysical objects, and recent observations across the electromagnetic spectrum have revealed that the dust distribution is often strongly three-dimensional. Dust grains are effective in absorbing and scattering UV/optical radiation, and re-emit the absorbed energy at infrared wavelengths. Understanding the intrinsic properties of these objects, including the dust itself, therefore requires 3D dust radiative transfer calculations. Unfortunately, the 3D dust radiative transfer problem is non-local and non-linear, which makes it one of the hardest challenges in computational astrophysics. Nevertheless, significant progress has been made in the last decade, with an increasing number of codes capable of dealing with the complete 3D dust radiative transfer problem. We discuss the complexity of this problem, describe the two most successful solution techniques (Ray-Tracing and Monte Carlo), and discuss the state of the art in modeling observational data using 3D dust radiative transfer codes. We end with an outlook on the bright future of this field.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.4998

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