title: Light scattering from an optically active sphere into a circular aperture.
abstract: To show how apertures affect measurements of the circularly polarized components of light scattered to a detector, we develop two methods of averaging the V and I Stokes parameters over a circular aperture that collects light scattered from an optically active sphere. One method uses a two-dimensional numerical integration that is appropriate for small apertures, and the other gives analytical expressions for scattering into a solid angle of any size. We identify the aperture locations that, independent of aperture size, give an average V (and an effective degree of circular polarization) of zero for scattering from an optically inactive sphere and of nonzero for scattering from an optically active sphere.
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Pendleton
authors.forename: D L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Rosen