On the statistics of the entropy-depolarization relation in random light scattering

We analyze an apparent disagreement between simulational and experimental results in a recent work of Puentes et al. [Opt. Lett., 30(23):3216, 2005] on the universality in depolarized light scattering. We show that the distribution of experimental points in the allowed region of the index of depolarization versus entropy diagram is ultimately determined by the statistics on the Mueller matrices, rather than on the eigenvalues of an associated Hermitian matrix. We propose a reasonable criterion that distinguishes the class of physically admissible from the physically realizable scattering media. This strategy yields further insight into the depolarization properties of media.