title: Can two planar sources with the same sets of Stokes parameters generate beams with different degrees of polarization?
abstract: It is shown that two stochastic electromagnetic beams that propagate from the source plane z = 0 into the half-space z > 0 may have different degrees of polarization throughout the half-space, even though they have the same sets of Stokes parameters in the source plane. This fact is due to a possible difference in the coherence properties of the field in that plane, but other reasons are also possible. The result is illustrated by an example.
authors.affiliation: College Optics and Photonics: CREOL and Florida Photonics Center of Excellence, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.
authors.forename: Mohamed
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Salem
authors.forename: Olga
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Korotkova
authors.forename: Emil
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wolf