Moment closure for radiative transfer equation

The radiative transfer equation (RTE) describes particle propagation and interaction with a background medium. It has been widely applied in many fields of science and engineering including astrophysics, heat transfer, remote sensing, and medical imaging. The RTE is a high-dimensional integro-differential kinetic equation. Common numerical methods for computing RTE can be classified into two categories: probabilistic methods such as the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method, and deterministic schemes including the discrete ordinates method (SN).