Radiative transfer equation for graded index medium in cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems

In graded index medium, the ray goes along a curved path determined by Fermat principle, and the curved ray-tracing is very difficult and complex. To avoid the complicated and time-consuming computation of curved ray trajectory, the methods not based on ray-tracing technique need to be developed for the solution of radiative transfer in graded index medium. For this purpose, in this paper the streaming operator along a curved ray trajectory in original radiative transfer equation for graded index medium is transformed and expressed in spatial and angular ordinates and the radiative transfer equation for graded index medium in cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems are derived. The conservative and the non-conservative forms of radiative transfer equation for three-dimensional graded index medium are given, which can be used as base equations to develop the numerical simulation methods, such as finite volume method, discrete ordinates method, and finite element method, for radiative transfer in graded index medium in cylindrical and spherical coordinate systems.