Full angular profile of the coherent polarization opposition effect

We use the rigorous vector theory of weak photon localization for a semi-infinite medium composed of nonabsorbing Rayleigh scatterers to compute the full angular profile of the polarization opposition effect. The effect is caused by coherent backscattering of unpolarized incident light and accompanies the well-known backscattering intensity peak. (C) 2000 Optical Society of America [S0740-3232(00)00905-4].