A new physical-geometric optics method is developed to compute the single-scattering properties of faceted particles. It incorporates a general absorption vector to accurately account for inhomogeneous wave effects, and subsequently yields the relevant analytical formulas effective and computationally efficient for absorptive scattering particles. A bundle of rays incident on a certain facet can be traced as a single beam. For a beam incident on multiple facets, a systematic beam-splitting technique based on computer graphics is used to split the original beam into several sub-beams so that each sub-beam is incident only on an individual facet. The new beam-splitting technique significantly reduces the computational burden. The present physical-geometric optics method can be generalized to arbitrary faceted particles with either convex or concave shapes and with a homogeneous or an inhomogeneous (e.g., a particle with a core) composition. The single-scattering properties of irregular convex homogeneous and inhomogeneous hexahedra are simulated and compared to their counterparts from two other methods including a numerically rigorous method.
The optical properties of diatom chains in the ocean are studied based on a combination of the many-body iterative T-matrix (MBIT) method and an improved implementation of the ray-by-ray (RBR) geometric optics method. The MBIT, a numerically accurate method, is advantageous for scatterers with linear cells. In contrast to other popular geometric optics methods, the RBR, an approximate method, considers the interference of all outgoing rays. The two methods are verified in comparison with benchmark simulations. The simulation results of diatom chains in a wide size range can be obtained with either or both methods, and each can be applied to any optically soft particle, i.e., in the case when relative refractive index approaches unity.
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