Multiple Light Scattering in Ordered Nematic Liquid Crystals

Abstract

We study multiple light scattering in ordered nematic liquid crystals from long- range dielectric fluctuations. The mass operator is calculated in the first Born approximation of Dyson's equation for the average amplitude. Ne~v results are found concerning the spectral function. In addition, the average intensity is obtained numerically using a Monte-Carlo simula- tion. We simulated the anisotropic shape of the coherent backscattering cone~ the time-of-flight distribution functions and the polarization in the diffusive regime. In this article we present a vector treatment of the radiative transfer in these materials, which takes polarization correctly into account. The average field amplitude is obtained ana- lytically solving Dyson's equation while a numerical simulation has been employed to determine the average intensity. The latter approach corresponds to the solution of the Bethe-Salpeter equation using Boltzmann~s approximation, without relying upon the diffusion approximation.