Polarization modeling for the main optics of Chinese Giant Solar Telescope

Chinese Giant Solar Telescope, which has a 8m diameter segmented primary mirror, is a plan for the next generation ground-based large solar telescope in China. A major scientific requirement for this telescope is the high accuracy polarimetry. In this paper, the instrumental polarization of the main optics is analyzed by polarization modeling, which is caused by off-axial field of view, spider asymmetry, nonuniform segment gap and segment coating. The result shows that the net polarization is sensitive to the asymmetrical spider leg widening and the uniformity of the segment optical property. For meeting the accuracy requirement, the extinction ratio and retardence error for each segment should be less than 0.3% and 0.8 degree, respectively. Generally, the ring segmented primary mirror have advantage in controlling the instrumental polarization for large main optics.