Discrimination of globally unpolarized fields through Stokes vector element correlations

    Authors

    J. Ellis;A. Dogariu

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    J. Opt. Soc. Am. A-Opt. Image Sci. Vis.

    Keywords

    SPECKLE PATTERNS; STATISTICS; LIGHT; PARTICLES; SURFACES; Optics

    Abstract

    In a previous publication [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 21, 988 (2004)], we examined theoretically joint probability distributions of Stokes vector elements and suggested the existence of various types of globally unpolarized light that could be discriminated through measurement of the Stokes vector element correlations. We now study the joint distribution of the degree of polarization and the three Stokes parameters as it relates to material properties in highly scattering, depolarizing random media. We describe numerical and experimental results of second-order Stokes vector element correlations, demonstrating the existence of various types of nonclassical, globally unpolarized light, and we suggest experimental means for discriminating between such field distributions. We also discuss the usefulness of the Stokes vector element correlations as an experimental tool for discriminating between different globally unpolarized fields and for verifying the assumption of Gaussian statistics usually invoked in the context of multiple light scattering. (C) 2005 Optical Society of America.

    Journal Title

    Journal of the Optical Society of America a-Optics Image Science and Vision

    Volume

    22

    Issue/Number

    3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2005

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    491

    Last Page

    496

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000227269500010

    ISSN

    1084-7529

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