Radiative Transfer Methods: new exact results for testing the accuracy of the ALI numerical method for a stellar atmosphere

LUTH, Observatoire de Paris, Section de Meudon, 92195 Meudon, France
e-mail: loic.chevallier@obspm.fr

Abstract

Tests are presented of the 1D Accelerated Lambda Iteration method, which is widely used for solving the radiative transfer equation for a stellar atmosphere. We use our ARTY code as a reference solution and tables for these tests are provided. We model a static idealized stellar atmosphere, which is illuminated on its inner face and where internal sources are distributed with weak or strong gradients. This is an extension of published tests for a slab without incident radiation and gradients. Typical physical conditions for the continuum radiation and spectral lines are used, as well as typical values for the numerical parameters in order to reach a 1% accuracy. It is shown that the method is able to reach such an accuracy for most cases but the spatial discretization has to be refined for strong gradients and spectral lines, beyond the scope of realistic stellar atmospheres models. Discussion is provided on faster methods.