Radiative transport in a planar medium exposed to azimuthally unsymmetric incident radiation

An analytical solution is developed for the radiation field engendered by illuminating an absorbing/anisotropically scattering planar medium with an azimuthally unsymmetric incident flux. The boundaries of the medium are allowed to possess both specular and diffuse reflection characteristics. The problem is mathematically reduced to solving a system of azimuthally independent equations which may be analyzed by many existing techniques. A solution scheme is formulated in terms of singular eigenfunctions and solved using a modified F_N method. Computations are performed for the azimuthally symmetric case of irradiation by parallel rays at oblique incidence. Several different phase functions are considered and results are presented for the discrete eigenvalues, the heat flux distributions within the medium, the reflectance and transmittance of the slab and the angular distribution of the intensities at the boundaries.