Light propagation in biological tissue

Biological tissue scatters light mainly in the forward direction where the scattering phase function has a narrow peak. This peak makes it difficult to solve the radiative transport equation. However, it is just for forward peaked scattering that the Fokker-Planck equation provides a good approximation, and it is easier to solve than the transport equation. Furthermore, the modification of the Fokker-Planck equation by Leakeas and Larsen provides an even better approximation and is also easier to solve. We demonstrate the accuracy of these two approximations by solving the problem of reflection and transmission of a plane wave normally incident on a slab composed of a uniform scattering medium.

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