Bibcode
                                    
                            DOI
                                    
                            Gros, M.; Crivellari, L.; Simonneau, E.
    Bibliographical reference
                                    Astrophysical Journal v.489, p.331
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                        11
            
                        1997
            
  Citations
                                    12
                            Refereed citations
                                    7
                            Description
                                    In the previous papers of this series, we introduced the implicit
integral method (IIM) to solve those radiative transfer (RT) problems in
which the source function depends on an integral of the specific
intensity of the radiation field over directions and frequencies. The
IIM rests upon a forward-elimination, back-substitution scheme naturally
based on the physics of the RT process, and does not require any
matricial algorithm. Customary methods to solve RT problems, in which
the source function depends on the aforesaid integral, rest upon matrix
algorithms. In spherical geometry, due to the strong anisotropy of the
radiation field brought about by the limb curvature, the so-called
peaking effect, the number of directions necessary to describe this
anisotropy is exceedingly high, and consequently the relevant matrices
are hard to handle. The present paper deals with the application of the
IIM to RT problems in spherical geometry, where the distinctive
nonmatricial character of the method can be fully exploited, given the
intrinsic high dimensionality of the problem.