Relationship between Hanbury Brown-Twiss effect and spectral degree of polarization in light scattering from a collection of particles of $\mathcal {L}$ types.

Abstract

We consider the vectorial extension of the recently developed matrix theory for the correlation between intensity fluctuations (CIF) of the scattered field generated by a collection of particles of $\mathcal {L}$ types [Y. Ding and D. M. Zhao, Opt. Express 30 46460, 2022]. In the spherical polar coordinate system, we establish a closed-form relation that connects the normalized CIF of the electromagnetic scattered field with the pair-potential matrix (PPM), the pair-structure matrix (PSM), and the spectral degree of polarization $\mathcal {P}$ of the incident field. Based on this, we pay much attention to the dependence of the normalized CIF of the scattered field on $\mathcal {P}$. It is found that the normalized CIF can be monotonically increasing or be nonmonotonic with $\mathcal {P}$ in the region [0, 1], determined by the polar angle θ and the azimuthal angle ϕ. Also, the distributions of the normalized CIF with $\mathcal {P}$ at polar angles and azimuthal angles are greatly different. These findings are explained mathematically as well as physically, and may be of interest to some related fields, especially where the CIF of the electromagnetic scattered field plays important roles.