Mechanics of polarization ray tracing

Polarization ray tracing is a collection of methods that extends geometrical ray tracing allowing the calculation of the evolution of polarization states along ray paths and the determination of the intrinsic polarization properties, such as diattenuation and retardance, associated with ray paths. The suitability of the Jones, Mueller, and three-dimensional polarization ray tracing calculi are compared, examining the issues of local versus global coordinates, amplitude versus phase representations, inclusion of the wavefront aberration function, partially polarized light, measurements of images by polarimeters, and diffraction image formation by low- and high-numerical-aperture beams.