Progress in polarization ray tracing

Polarization ray tracing is a collection of methods that extend 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. This paper compares the suitability of the Jones, Mueller, and 3D polarization ray tracing calculi, examining the issues of local vs. global coordinates, amplitude vs. 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.