Estimation of the degree of polarization from a single speckle intensity image with photon noise
Résumé
It is demonstrated that, if not appropriately taken into account, photon noise leads to a biased estimation of the degree of polarization from a single speckle intensity image. A new method for estimating the degree of polarization from a single speckle intensity image acquired at low photon flux level is thus proposed. Its precision and the limit critical photon level that does not deteriorate the performance up to a given precision are determined.