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Space-Angle Discontinuous Galerkin Finite Element Method For Radiative Transfer Equation, Hang Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

Radiative transfer theory describes the interaction of radiation with scattering and absorbing media. It has applications in neutron transport, atmospheric physics, heat transfer, molecular imaging, and others. In steady state, the radiative transfer equation is an integro-differential equation of five independent variables, which are 3 dimensions in space and 2 dimensions in the angular direction. This high dimensionality and the presence of the integral term present serious challenges when solving the equation numerically. Over the past 50 years, several techniques for solving the radiative transfer equation (RTE) have been introduced. These include, but are certainly not limited to, Monte Carlo …