Extended Mueller–Stokes description of polarization-mode transformation in linearly birefringent single-mode optical fibers

Abstract

We derive a more general version of the commonly known quasi-monochromatic Mueller matrix of a linearly birefringent single-mode optical fiber. In the matrix, the complex degree of self-coherence of the illuminating field is replaced by the normalized cross-correlation of a pair of any jointly stationary light disturbances associated with the eigenpolarization modes, where both modulus and phase of the cross correlation are included. This allows one to write polychromatic Mueller-Stokes equations of multisection systems transmitting any uniformly polarized stationary field. A way for handling arbitrary phase birefringence dispersion is also suggested.