Reference Monte Carlo Results

Almost all the analytical solutions reported in Chs. 5–14 and the related software described in Ch. 18 are approximate solutions of the RTE. Thus, before using them, it is useful to know the level of their accuracy in order to establish their applicability in different fields of interest. For this purpose, the reader can find in the supplemental materials for this book large data sets that represent examples of solutions of the RTE obtained with MC simulations. In fact, with MC simulations, the RTE can be solved without the need of simplifying assumptions and with an accuracy only limited by the statistical fluctuations related to the stochastic nature of the method. The MC results can therefore be used as a standard reference for comparison. This chapter is mainly devoted to describe the MC results found in (Sec. 18.2.1). The MC results have been obtained using several different MC programs. For a better understanding and the proper use of the MC results, a description of the MC programs we used is reported in Secs. 16.1–16.4. Examples of comparisons will be shown in Ch. 17.