A generalized spherical harmonics solution basic to the scattering of polarized light (Q761035)

A generalized spherical harmonics solution for the azimuthally symmetric component of a Fourier representation of the vector of Stokes parameters basic to the scattering of polarized light in a plane-parallel layer is reported. The final result is continuous in both independent variables and is valid for a general class of scattering matrices. Computational aspects of the developed solution are discussed, and numerical results for the relevant Stokes vector are given for several realistic cases.