A 3D vector radiative transfer computational package based on the Monte Carlo method

Polarimetry is becoming more and more important in such fields as astronomy, atmospheric science, chemistry, biology, interferometry, medical science, and quantum theory. The four-component Stokes vector is one of the most effective ways to describe polarized states of light. The 4×4 effective Mueller matrices are used to express the relations between the Stokes vectors of the incident light and the scattered light for light interacting with a turbid medium. The evolution of the effective Mueller matrices is governed by the radiative transfer equations for multiple scattering systems. The effective Mueller matrices (or Green matrices) for scattering systems are the sine que non for remote sensing applications. Of the many ways to solve the radiative transfer equations the Monte Carlo method is by far the most versatile. We will present a Monte-Carlo code to solve the 3D vector radiative transfer equations. The uniqueness of the current model is that it can solve for the impulse-response relations on a pixel-by-pixel basis, i. e., for a input to a given pixel we calculate the response for all other pixels. To our knowledge, there is no other model that can give the impulse-response Green matrix.