Kinetics of a multiatomic gas in the presence of a radiation field

Wigner operators are used to describe the nonequilibrium states ofa spatially inhomogeneous system consisting of a multiatomic gas and a radiation field. In the approximation of twobody collisions and single-photon exchange between the molecules and the radiation field, kinetic equations are derived for the single-particle Wigner operator that determines the gas-dynamic and optical properties of the gas, for the polarization matrix of the random component of the radiation field, and for the correlation function that determines the vector of the electric field and the vector of the magnetic field of the coherent component of the radiation. The example of a rarefied multiatomic gas interacting with a nonequilibrium monatomic gas shows that the obtained kinetic equations describe the optical properties of the gas with allowance for broadening and the shift of the molecular levels due to the twobody collisions and the interaction of the molecules with the random component of the radiation field.