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Many body effects in the line radiative transfer equation

The radiative transfer equation for spectral lines from an extended gas is derived from first principles, treating the gas as a system of many atoms/molecules rather than isolated ones. Line broadening effects are assumed to be dominated by particle motions (Doppler effect), but collisional broadening effects are included in the impact approximation. We retrieve the canonical radiative transfer equation under the condition that the optical depth over a coherence length, defined as the transition-levels lifetime times the speed of light, is much lower than unity. For other cases, the line radiative transfer equation contains a correction factor whose magnitude depends exponentially on a quantity that we call the coherent optical depth. We compute that many-body effects affect line radiative transfer of strongly emitting and astronomically ubiquitous radio- and submillimeter lines, such as the HI 21 cm line, and rotational transitions of the main isotopologue of CO. These results imply that care must be taken when interpreting observations relying on these lines, as many-body effects can significantly alter emergent line profiles and bias inferred physical conditions of the emitting gas. Finally, we propose a simple laboratory experiment that would reveal many-body effects in the transfer of radiation, which could furthermore offer a cost-effective means of constraining fundamental molecular parameters.