n030-radtrans.docx --- Ast 4001, Fall 2015
Internet sites with notes and outlines about RADIATIVE TRANSFER
Caution -- In this topic, some references have subtle differences in notation, often involving
factors of 4 and/or  . This is especially true for the net-flux quantities F  and H  .
Be sure you know exactly which choices each author has made.
One quantity where Ast 4001 has slightly unorthodox usage is the emission coefficient:
we'll write   (a sort of curly upper-case E) instead of the traditional symbol j  .
Some authors use   , lower-case Greek epsilon, which resembles our notation.
In Ast 4001, I, J, etc. usually mean I   , J   , etc. -- which are equivalent
to I   , J  , etc. In a few cases, I may be the total integrated value,  I  d
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All of the following internet references are better than Prialnik's textbook. Moreover, you
can find others by googling "specific intensity", "radiative transfer", or related terms.
Notes from a course at University College London:
http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~idh/PHAS2112/Lectures/Current/Part1.pdf
This reference has more or less the same attitude and style as Ast 4001, but more details.
Similar references from California:
http://www.ucolick.org/~enrico/ast202/material_files/intensity.pdf
http://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~ay216/06/NOTES/ay216_2006_02_Rad_Trans.pdf
The first of these has OK text but covers less material, while the second
is a little more complicated than it needs to be.
Powerpoint slides* from courses at other universities (in pdf format):
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/users/kud/teaching_12/3_Radiative_transfer.pdf
http://jila.colorado.edu/~pja/astr3730/lecture04.pdf
Wikipedia articles on "specific intensity" and other concepts are useful, but most of them
don't appear to be written by first-class researchers. For instance, according to Wikipedia
the term "specific intensity" is obsolete and we shouldn't use the word "brightness."
Those are merely the opinions of a committee, and most active researchers ignore them.
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*BTW, every student should look up Edward R. Tufte's famous assessment of PowerPoint.
He noted that the basic nature of PowerPoint tends to suppress cognitive processes, i.e., tends to
make you dumber. The most notorious example was a PowerPoint presentation that contributed
to the loss of a space shuttle in 2003. ... And Tufte is far more qualified to judge this stuff than
anyone at Microsoft or, for that matter, at most universities. There are good reasons for the
absence of PowerPoint in Ast 4001.