Two-Stream Approximation to the Radiative Transfer Equation:A New Improvement and Comparative Accuracy with Existing Methods

Mathematical modeling of the interaction between solar radiation and the Earth's atmosphere is formalized by the radiative transfer equation(RTE), whose resolution calls for two-stream approximations among other methods. This paper proposes a new two-stream approximation of the RTE with the development of the phase function and the intensity into a third-order series of Legendre polynomials. This new approach, which adds one more term in the expression of the intensity and the phase function, allows in the conditions of a plane parallel atmosphere a new mathematical formulation of γparameters. It is then compared to the Eddington, Hemispheric Constant, Quadrature, Combined Delta Function and Modified Eddington, and second-order approximation methods with reference to the Discrete Ordinate(Disort) method(δ –128 streams), considered as the most precise. This work also determines the conversion function of the proposed New Method using the fundamental definition of two-stream approximation(F-TSA) developed in a previous work. Notably,New Method has generally better precision compared to the second-order approximation and Hemispheric Constant methods. Compared to the Quadrature and Eddington methods, New Method shows very good precision for wide domains of the zenith angle μ 0, but tends to deviate from the Disort method with the zenith angle, especially for high values of optical thickness. In spite of this divergence in reflectance for high values of optical thickness, very strong correlation with the Disort method(R ≈ 1) was obtained for most cases of optical thickness in this study. An analysis of the Legendre polynomial series for simple functions shows that the high precision is due to the fact that the approximated functions ameliorate the accuracy when the order of approximation increases, although it has been proven that there is a limit order depending on the function from which the precision is lost. This observation indicates that increasing the order of approximation of the phase function of the RTE leads to a better precision in flux calculations. However, this approach may be limited to a certain order that has not been studied in this paper.

Kurtosis parameters of super Lorentz-Gauss beams through a paraxial and real ABCD optical system

Based on the propagation equation of higher-order intensity moments, analytical propagation expressions for the kurtosis parameters of a super Lorentz-Gauss （SLG） SLG01 beam through a paraxial and real ABCD optical system are derived. By replacing the parameters in the expressions of the kurtosis parameters of the SLC01 beam, the kurtosis parameters of the SLG10 and SLGll beams through a paraxial and real ABCD optical system can be easily obtained. The kurtosis parameters of an SLG01 beam through a paraxial and real ABCD optical system depend on two ratios. One is the ratio of the transfer matrix element B to the product of the transfer matrix element A and the diffraction-free range of the super-Lorentzian part. The other is the ratio of the width parameter of the super-Lorentzian part to the waist of the Gaussian part. As a numerical example, the properties of the kurtosis parameters of an SLG01 beam propagating in free space are illustrated. The influences of different parameters on the kurtosis parameters of an SLG01 beam are analysed in detail.