  The angular distribution of low-frequency radiation after single scattering
by an isotropic distribution of relativistic electrons considerably differs
from the Rayleigh angular function. In particular, the scattering by an
ensemble of ultra-relativistic electrons obeys the law p=1-cos(alpha), where
alpha is the scattering angle; hence photons are preferentially scattered
backwards. We discuss some consequences of this fact for astrophysical
problems. We show that a hot electron-scattering atmosphere is more reflective
than a cold one: the fraction of incident photons which become reflected having
suffered a single scattering event can be larger by up to 50 per cent in the
former case. This should affect the photon exchange between cold accretion
disks and hot coronae or ADAF flows in the vicinity of relativistic compact
objects; as well as the rate of cooling (through multiple inverse-Compton
scattering of seed photons supplied from outside) of optically thick clouds of
relativistic electrons in compact radiosources. The forward-backward scattering
asymmetry also causes spatial diffusion of photons to proceed slower in hot
plasma than in cold one, which is important for the shapes of Comptonization
spectra and the time delays between soft and hard radiations coming from
variable X-ray sources.
