ABSTRACT
This chapter derives and interpret the canonical projections decomposition for the image distance data xσ,τ=||I1,1−Iσ,τ||, σ∈D3,τ∈D4. The Stokes parameters are used to describe the polarization state of light. The Stokes vector is a four-component vector of the Stokes parameters and spans the space of all states of polarized, unpolarized, and partially polarized light. The parameters describe the total intensity, the degree of polarization, and the shape parameters of what is known as the polarization ellipse (which is nothing but the ellipse traced out by the electric field vector of the electromagnetic radiation). The effect of an optical system on incident polarized light can be calculated by determining the Stokes vector of the input and using what are known as Mueller matrices to get the output light Stokes vector. The Pauli matrices are extensively used in physics and are a set of three 2×2 Hermitian and unitary matrices.
