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Updated: Oct 1, 2026

Scattering And Absorption of Light in Planetary Regoliths
Published on: July 1, 2019
Inherent and apparent scattering properties of coated or uncoated spheres embedded in an absorbing host medium
Ping Yang1, Bo-Cai Gao, Warren J Wiscombe
1Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station 77843, USA. pyang@ariel.met.tamu.edu
Abstract:
The conventional Lorenz-Mie formalism is extended to the case for a coated sphere embedded in an absorbing medium. The apparent and inherent scattering cross sections of a particle, derived from the far field and near field, respectively, are different if the host medium is absorptive. The effect of absorption within the host medium on the phase-matrix elements associated with polarization depends on the dielectric properties of the scattering particle. For the specific cases of a soot particle coated with a water layer and an ice sphere containing an air bubble, the phase-matrix elements -P12/P11 and P33/P11 are unique if the shell is thin. The radiative transfer equation for a multidisperse particle system embedded within an absorbing medium is discussed. Conventional multiple-scattering computational algorithms can be applied if scaled apparent single-scattering properties are applied.
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