Depolarizing power and polarization entropy of light scattering media: experiment and theory

We experimentally investigate the depolarizing power and the polarization entropy of a broad class of scattering optical media. By means of polarization tomography, these quantities are derived from an effective Mueller matrix, which is introduced through a formal description of the multi-mode detec...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2004-12
Main Authors: Puentes, Graciana, Voigt, Dirk, Aiello, Andrea, Woerdman, J P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Depolarization
Entropy
Light scattering
Polarization
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:We experimentally investigate the depolarizing power and the polarization entropy of a broad class of scattering optical media. By means of polarization tomography, these quantities are derived from an effective Mueller matrix, which is introduced through a formal description of the multi-mode detection scheme we use, as recently proposed by Aiello and Woerdman (arXiv:quant-ph/0407234). This proposal emphasized an intriguing universality in the polarization aspects of classical as well as quantum light scattering; in this contribution we demonstrate experimentally that this universality is obeyed by a surprisingly wide class of depolarizing media. This, in turn, provides the experimentalist with a useful characterization of the polarization properties of any scattering media, as well as a universal criterion for the validity of the measured data.
ISSN:2331-8422