Multiple scattering of polarized light in disordered media exhibiting short-range structural correlations

Abstract

We develop a model based on a multiple scattering theory to describe the diffusion of polarized light in disordered media exhibiting short-range structural correlations. Starting from exact expressions of the average field and the field spatial correlation function, we derive a radiative transfer equation for the polarization-resolved specific intensity that is valid for weak disorder and we solve it analytically in the diffusion limit. A decomposition of the specific intensity in terms of polarization eigenmodes reveals how structural correlations, represented via the standard anisotropic scattering parameter $g$, affect the diffusion of polarized light. More specifically, we find that propagation through each polarization eigenchannel is described by its own transport mean free path that depends on $g$ in a specific and non-trivial way.

References in corpus (4)

• Cooperative effects and disorder: A scaling analysis of the spectrum of the effective atomic Hamiltonian
• Interpretation of the coherency matrix for three-dimensional polarization states
• A three-dimensional degree of polarization based on Rayleigh scattering
• Isotropically polarized speckle patterns

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Acousto-optic effect in random media
• Probing the position-dependent optical energy fluence rate in three-dimensional scattering samples