Computation of the coupled thermo-optical scattering properties of random particulate systems

The focus of this work is the investigation of the overall scattering behavior of light by aggregates of randomly distributed particles. Specifically, a ray-tracing algorithm is developed and combined with a stochastic genetic algorithm in order to treat coupled inverse optical scattering formulations, where physical parameters, such as particulate volume fractions, refractive indices and thermal constants, are sought so that the aggregate response will match specified coupled scattering, thermal and infrared responses. Large-scale numerical simulations are presented to illustrate the overall procedure and to investigate the propagation through disordered particulate systems.