Lyot depolarizer in terms of the theory of coherence-description for light of any spectrum

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. (C) 2012 Optical Society of America