Asymmetric imaging in the presence of a bright interferent

Given two aerosol plumes—one scattering and one absorbing—in the presence of a bright interferent, it has been shown that the image contrast ratio through the pair of plumes is different in the two opposing view directions [ Appl. Opt. 54 , 12 ( 2015 ) APOPAI 0003-6935 10.1364/AO.54.000012 ]. Here, we generalize those earlier findings to plumes with mixed absorbing and scattering properties. By using the path integral solution to the radiative transfer equation, we incorporate both path length dependence and redirection of light due to multiple scattering and allow for arbitrary interferent location. Within this expanded model, we demonstrate that these effects can significantly alter the asymmetry predicted by the previous work.