Summary and application to scattering experiments

We have studied the scattering of a light-ray by a polarizable element. It has been assumed that the incident light was propagating along the axis OZ of the reference system, and that the polarizable element was located at the origin O. The scattered radiation has been characterized at each point of position vector r, by the Stokes parameters [see (6.3.63)] 

We established relations between the parameters PJj) of the scattered radiation and the parameters °PM of the incident radiation [see (6.3.53)]. 

We shall keep in mind the following result when incident light is linearly polarized along OX, the scattered photon flux in the plane (07, OZ) has the following properties  

If the polarizable element is isotropic, this flux is isotropic in the plane and the radiation is linearly polarized along OX. In this case 

If the polarizable element is anisotropic, the mean flux is isotropic and it is obtained by averaging over all the orientations of the polarizable element in this case, the scattered radiation is partially depolarized It is convenient to express P3 and P4 in terms of the contributions Px and Py 

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