title: Lyot depolarizer in terms of the theory of coherence--description for light of any spectrum.
abstract: A coherence-based description of the Lyot depolarizer illuminated by polychromatic light of any spectral density distribution is proposed as a generalization of the formulas provided for symmetrical spectra by Burns [J. Lightwave Technol. 1, 475 (1983)] and Mochizuki [Appl. Opt. 23, 3284 (1984)]. The structure of the derived expressions is explained in physical terms, and a numerical comparison with the previous solutions is performed. The results of the numerical analysis show that the proposed description, when applied to any configuration of a two-segment anisotropic depolarizer, is fully equivalent with the Mueller-Stokes calculus for broadband light. Following this consistency, the range of accuracy of the formula by Mochizuki has been verified.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. makowski@if.pw.edu.pl
authors.forename: Piotr L
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Makowski
authors.forename: Marek Z
authors.initials: MZ
authors.lastname: Szymanski
authors.forename: Andrzej W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Domanski