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| Paper: |
Non-conservative Rayleigh Scattering. A Perturbation Approach |
| Volume: |
519, Radiative Signatures from the Cosmos |
| Page: |
101 |
| Authors: |
Frisch, H. |
| Abstract: |
The continuous spectra of stellar and planetary atmospheres may be linearly polarized by Rayleigh or Thomson scattering. The polarization rate follows the Chandrasekhar's law for the Milne or diffuse reflection problems, if scattering processes are the only source of absorption and emission. Deviations from the Chandrasekhar's law due to true absorptions by bound-free or free-free transitions are derived from a perturbation analysis of the polarized radiative transfer equation, using as expansion parameter the ratio ε = κc/(κc + σc), with κc and σc the true absorption and scattering absorption coefficients. An expansion in powers of ε is proposed for the polarization rate. A comparison with numerical results shows an excellent fit for ε up to 10–3 but a systematic underestimation above this value. |
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