Abstract
A phase-spacediscontinuousGalerkin(PSDG)methodispresentedforthesolutionofstellarradiative
transfer problems.Itallowsforgreateradaptivitythancompetingmethodswithoutsacrificing generality.
The methodisextensivelytestedonasphericallysymmetric,static,inverse-power-lawscatteringat-
mosphere. Resultsfordifferentsizesofatmospheresandintensitiesofscatteringagreedwithasymptotic
values.Theexponentiallydecayingbehavioroftheradiative field inthediffusive-transparenttransition
region, andtheforwardpeakingbehavioratthesurfaceofextendedatmosphereswereaccurately
captured.Theintegrodifferentialequationofradiationtransferissolvediterativelybyalternatingbe-
tween theradiativepressureequationandtheoriginalequationwiththeintegraltermtreatedasan
energy densitysourceterm.Ineachiteration,theequationsaresolvedviaanexplicit, flux-conserving,
discontinuous Galerkinmethod.Finiteelementsareorderedinwavefrontsperpendiculartothechar-
acteristic curvessothatelementallinearalgebraicsystemsaresolvedquicklybysweepingthephase
space elementbyelement.Twoimplementationsofadiffusiveboundaryconditionattheoriginare
demonstratedwhereinthe finite discontinuityintheradiationintensityisaccuratelycapturedbythe
proposed method.Thisallowsforaconsistentmechanismtopreservephotonluminosity.Themethod
wasprovedtoberobustandfast,andacaseismadefortheadequacyofparallelprocessing.Inaddition
to classicaltwo-dimensionalplots,resultsofnormalizedradiationintensityweremappedontoalog-
polar surfaceexhibitingalldistinguishingfeaturesoftheproblemstudied.