Discontinuous finite element method for vector radiative transfer

- A discontinuous FEM (DFEM) is first developed to solve vector radiative transfer (VRT).
- A local refine angular scheme is first used to obtain compact results.
- The computational accuracy and efficiency of DFEM are analyzed.
- The DFEM can handle VRT in media with various scattering phase functions.
- The DFEM is applied to solve VRT in two-dimensional scattering media.

The discontinuous finite element method (DFEM) is applied to solve the vector radiative transfer in participating media. The derivation in a discrete form of the vector radiation governing equations is presented, in which the angular space is discretized by the discrete-ordinates approach with a local refined modification, and the spatial domain is discretized into finite non-overlapped discontinuous elements. The elements in the whole solution domain are connected by modelling the boundary numerical flux between adjacent elements, which makes the DFEM numerically stable for solving radiative transfer equations. Several various problems of vector radiative transfer are tested to verify the performance of the developed DFEM, including vector radiative transfer in a one-dimensional parallel slab containing a Mie/Rayleigh/strong forward scattering medium and a two-dimensional square medium. The fact that DFEM results agree very well with the benchmark solutions in published references shows that the developed DFEM in this paper is accurate and effective for solving vector radiative transfer problems.