Transport of light and electrons in strongly scattering media

Light transport through white media, such as clouds and paint is a subject studied intensively by astrophysicists. In this field some open questions were solved, that explained quite a variety of experiments.
The solution to locate objects immersed in a multiple scattering medium [P31] was a step forward towards the detection of breastcancer using visible (infrared) light. This initiated two later theoretical papers on the effective ``charge'' and ``dipole'' of objects immersed in a multiple scattering medium, [P45], [P46].
Transport in restricted geometries was studied in [L19], [P39]. The presence of disorder in the interaces of the wells in double well structures appeared to explain an observation that when the thickness of the barriers is enlarged, the transmission maximum diminishes by orders of magnitude, but the transmission width remains broad.
In the skin layer of multiple scattering media the transition from ray-transport to diffuse transport takes place; how to describe this in media with a different refractive index was explained in [P32], and related items in [L21] and [L22].
A technically useful step was to introduce point scatterers, which have to be defined with care when close to a resonance, see [L18].
After contributing to explain a small asymmetry in the distribution of the total transmitted light through a multiple scattering slab [L23], this problem was solved in its generality [L24]; the results were beautifully confirmed in the microwave regime by the group of Genack.
The analogous assymmetry (third cumulant) in the conductivity of electrons was studied in [P41] and related questions were considered in [P34].
The limit of strong forward scattering allows in the multiple scattering regime still an exact solution, that was derived by us [P36].
The full vector character of light was taken into account and exact solutions were extended to this case [P40]; the presence of magnetic fields, causing Faraday rotation of the polarization vector, was studied in [P38].
For the study of the light coming from the moons of Jupiter it was relevant to have the full angular profile of the coherent polarization opposition effect, [L35].
Transport of light by resonant atoms at random positions was considered in [L20].
Interference phenomena in radiation of a charged particle moving in a system with one-dimensional randomness was considered in [47]; this principle may be used for building new particle detectors.

A review paper [R2] was written with PhD student Mark van Rossum.