On the Kinetic Model Description of Rayleigh–Brillouin Scattering from Molecular Gases

Abstract

We analyze in detail, in the kinetic regime, the behavior of a model kinetic equation previously used by us for the description of the density fluctuation spectrum in molecular gases. We find that over a small range of wavelengths and frequencies the predicted spectrum contains an unphysical feature, namely a shallow dip in the Rayleigh line. This effect is traced to the modelled elastic collision operator and has gone unnoticed in similar models of monatomic gases. We propose a modified model which corrects this feature and which appears to reproduce the details seen in light-scattering experiments.