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The multiple scattering of an ultrashort laser pulse by a turbid dispersive medium (namely a cloud of bubbles in water) is investigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. The theory of Gouesbet and Gr\'ehan [Part. Part. Syst. Charact. 17 213-224 (2000)] is used to derive an energetic model of the scattering transient. The spreading and extinction of the pulse is decoupled from the transient of scattering to describe each phenomenon individually. The transient of scattering is modeled with the Lorenz-Mie Theory, thus also valid for a relative refractive index lower than one, contrary to the Debye series expansion which does not converge close to the critical angle. To this aim, the Scattering Impulse Response Function (SIRF) allows to detect the different modes of scattering transient in time and direction. The present approach is more generic and can simulate clouds of air bubbles in water. Two Monte-Carlo approaches are proposed. The first is a pure Monte Carlo approach where the delay due to the scattering is randomly drawn at each event, while the second is based on the transport of the whole scattering signal. They are both embedded in the Monte Carlo code Scatter3D [JOSA A 24, 2206-2219 (2007)]. Both models produce equivalent trends and are validated against published numerical results. They are applied to the multiple scattering of ultra short pulse by a cloud of bubble in water in the forward direction. The pulse spread due to the propagation in water is computed for a wide range of traveled distances and pulse durations, and the optimal pulse duration is given to minimize the pulse spread at a given distance. The main result is that the scattered photons exit the turbid medium earlier than the ballistic photons and produce a double peak related to the refraction in the bubble. This demonstrates the possibility to develop new diagnostics to characterize dynamic bubbly flows., Comment: 30 pages, 19 Figures

In this chapter, mathematical and computational light scattering models relevant for halftone reproduction and other simulation studies in digital imaging are discussed. While in principle Maxwell's electromagnetic equations provide a very accurate and general description of light propagation, their numerical solution in highly heterogeneous domains is computationally too expensive for the kind of practical applications considered in this book. Therefore, the focus here will be on the computationally much more efficient transport theory. Besides discussing its limitations, the most general solution approach, that is, the Monte Carlo method, is explained and compared with more simple models, which involve further approximations. Keywords: probability density function method; point spread function; light scattering; transport theory; Monte Carlo; stencil method; multi–scale method; optical dot gain; Kubelka-Munk; random walk; diffusion model; polarization; fluorescence

The complexity of modeling light propagation in turbid media can be significantly simplified if one assumes it to be diffusive. This is, however, only valid after the light has traveled a sufficient distance so that the diffusion equation can be employed. So far, there has been no reliable way to determine this distance, despite the fact that the assumption is often applied in optics. The discrete nature of scattering events plays an important role in modeling propagation of weakly scattered light, so a continuum equation such as the diffusion equation cannot be used to describe this process. Electric field autocorrelation functions ${g}_{1}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ of light transmitted through turbid colloidal samples are measured using diffusing wave spectroscopy and compared to Monte Carlo simulations in order to obtain a better estimation of the continuum limit. The two methods to calculate ${g}_{1}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ from the simulated photon trajectories are compared; the first assumes the continuum limit by using the path-length distributions of photon trajectories, while the second considers the square momentum transfers and therefore accurately calculates ${g}_{1}(\ensuremath{\tau})$ even if the detected signal is composed of weakly scattered light. The results of the two methods are used to determine the lengths of the shortest diffuse photon trajectories; they grow with the sample thickness and scattering anisotropy.

Targeting of permissive entry sites is crucial for bacterial infection. The targeting mechanisms are incompletely understood. We have analyzed target-site selection by S. Typhimurium. This enteropathogenic bacterium employs adhesins (e.g. fim) and the type III secretion system 1 (TTSS-1) for host cell binding, the triggering of ruffles and invasion. Typically, S. Typhimurium invasion is focused on a subset of cells and multiple bacteria invade via the same ruffle. It has remained unclear how this is achieved. We have studied target-site selection in tissue culture by time lapse microscopy, movement pattern analysis and modeling. Flagellar motility (but not chemotaxis) was required for reaching the host cell surface in vitro. Subsequently, physical forces trapped the pathogen for ∼1.5–3 s in “near surface swimming”. This increased the local pathogen density and facilitated “scanning” of the host surface topology. We observed transient TTSS-1 and fim-independent “stopping” and irreversible TTSS-1-mediated docking, in particular at sites of prominent topology, i.e. the base of rounded-up cells and membrane ruffles. Our data indicate that target site selection and the cooperative infection of membrane ruffles are attributable to near surface swimming. This mechanism might be of general importance for understanding infection by flagellated bacteria., PLoS Pathogens, 8 (7), ISSN:1553-7374, ISSN:1553-7366

This paper deals with an efficient and accurate simulation algorithm to solve the vector Boltzmann equation for polarized light transport in scattering media. The approach is based on a stencil method, which was previously developed for unpolarized light scattering and proved to be much more efficient (speedup factors of up to 10 were reported) than the classical Monte Carlo while being equally accurate. To validate what we believe to be the new stencil method, a substrate composed of spherical non-absorbing particles embedded in a non-absorbing medium was considered. The corresponding single scattering Mueller matrix, which is required to model scattering of polarized light, was determined based on the Lorenz–Mie theory. From simulations of a reflected polarized laser beam, the Mueller matrix of the substrate was computed and compared with an established reference. The agreement is excellent, and it could be demonstrated that a significant speedup of the simulations is achieved due to the stencil approach compared with the classical Monte Carlo.

This work deals with the efficient and accurate modeling of fluorescence in the context of stochastic Monte Carlo methods for which we propose a novel multiscale method. As in other approaches of this category, the transport theory is employed to describe the physics. The new framework was successfully applied for a quantitative assessment of halftone reflectance measurements with three different devices. It could be demonstrated that the described method is faster than classical Monte Carlo by multiple orders of magnitude, and that it is capable of correctly handling the geometrical device differences. It is also shown that optical dot gain is accurately predicted for the whole ink coverage range.

Monte Carlo simulations were performed in order to obtain reflectance measurements from phantoms typically used in biomedical optics when either unpolarized or circularly polarized incident light is used. Phantoms contain spherical targets of different diameters, placed at different depths, with higher absorption than the surrounding medium, which are detected using a coaxial setup of laser and detector. The considered turbid media have highly anisotropic scattering phase functions, so detected light for the considered times of flight is not diffuse, but rather in the multiple-scattering regime. Therefore, the target reconstruction methods typically used in diffuse optical imaging cannot be employed. However, spatially resolved reflectance measurements in the time domain allow use of a novel reconstruction method based on the approximation of average photon trajectories, which are functions of the separation distance from the point of incidence and of the time of flight. With the approximated average photon trajectories, one can estimate the depth of the target.

In this paper a new approach to improve contrast in optical subsurface imaging is presented. The method is based on time-resolved reflectance and selection of ballistic photons using polarization gating. Numerical studies with a statistical Monte Carlo method also reveal that weakly scattered diffuse photons can be eliminated by employing a small aperture and that the contrast improvement strongly depends on the single-scattering phase function. A possible experimental setup is discussed in the conclusions.