Solving the radiative transfer equation with a mathematical particle method.

We solve the radiative transfer equation (RTE) using a recently proposed mathematical particle method, originally developed for solving general functional equations. We show that, in the case of the RTE, it gives several advantages, such as handling arbitrary boundary conditions and phase functions and avoiding numerical instability in strongly forward-scattering media. We also solve the RTE, including fluorescence, and an example is shown with a fluorescence cascade where light is absorbed and emitted in several steps. We show that the evaluated particle method is straightforward to implement, which is in contrast with many traditional RTE solvers, but a potential drawback is the tuning of the method parameters.