• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.31-35
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• 2008

We present analytical approximations for calculating the scattering and escape of non-ionizing photons from a plane-parallel medium with uniformly illuminated by external sources. We compare the results with the case of a spherical dust cloud. It is found that more scattering and absorption occur in the plane-parallel geometry than in the spherical geometry when the optical depth perpendicular to the plane and the radial optical depth of the sphere are the same. The results can provide an approximate way to estimate radiative transfer in a variety interstellar conditions and can be applied to the dust-scattered diffuse Galactic light.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.25-29
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• 2008

Scattering of incident light by the interstellar dust is usually approximated by Henyey-Greenstein scattering phase function. Recently, Draine (2003) proposed a new analytic phase function with two parameters. We describe an algorithm to generate random numbers distributed according to the Draine’s function, and compare two phase functions. It is also derived exact solutions of two parameters for given values ${\langle}cos{\theta}{\rangle}$ and ${\langle}cos^2{\theta}{\rangle}$. It is found that Henyey-Greenstein function with g = ${\langle}cos{\theta}{\rangle}$ provides a good approximation for ${\lambda}\;>\;2000{\AA}$. At shorter wavelengths, more realistic phase function may be needed for radiative transfer models.