Numerical solution of the radiation transport equation in disk geometry

We describe an efficient numerical method for solving the problem of radiation transport in a dusty medium with two dimensional (2-D) disk geometry. It is a generalization of the one-dimensional quasi-diffusion method in which the transport equation is cast in diffusion form and then solved as a boundary value problem. The method should be applicable to a variety of astronomical sources, the dynamics of which are angular-momentum dominated and hence not accurately treated by spherical geometry, e.g. protoplanetary nebulae, circumstellar disks, interstellar molecular clouds, accretion disks, and disk galaxies. The computational procedure and practical considerations for implementing the method are described in detail. To illustrate the effects of 2-D radiation transport, we compare some model results (dust temperature distributions and i.r. flux spectra) for externally heated, interstellar dust clouds with spherically symmetric and disk geometry.