Light scattering by multiple spheres: comparison between Maxwell theory and radiative-transfer-theory calculations.

We present a methodology to compare results of classical radiative transfer theory against exact solutions of Maxwell theory for a high number of spheres. We calculated light propagation in a cubic scattering region (20 x 20 x 20 microm(3)) consisting of different concentrations of polystyrene spheres in water (diameter 2 microm) by an analytical solution of Maxwell theory and by a numerical solution of radiative transfer theory. The relative deviation of differential as well as total scattering cross sections obtained by both approaches was evaluated for each sphere concentration. For the considered case, we found that deviations due to radiative transfer theory remain small, even for concentrations up to ca. 20 vol. %.