Application of corpuscular and wave Monte-Carlo methods in optics of dispersive media

Two ways of simulating statistically the propagation of laser radiation in dispersive media by the Monte-Carlo method are compared. The first approach can be called corpuscular because it is based on the calculation of random photon trajectories, while the second one can be referred to as the wave approach because it is based on the calculation of characteristics of random wave fields. It is shown that, although these approaches are based on different physical concepts of radiation scattering by particles, they yield almost equivalent results for the intensity of a restricted beam in a dispersive medium. However, there exist some differences. The corpuscular Monte-Carlo method does not reproduce the diffraction divergence of the beam, which can be taken into account by introducing the diffraction factor. The wave method does not consider backscattering, which corresponds to the quasi-optical approximation. (special issue devoted to multiple radiation scattering in random media)