PyAstroPol: A Python package for the instrumental polarization analysis of the astronomical optics.

Abstract

The instrumental polarization analysis is one of the key aspects of the optical system analysis of the astronomical telescopes and instruments. The majority of the optical surfaces in the astronomical instruments induce a change in the state of polarization of the incoming light, which could lead to inaccurate measurements of the state of polarization or polarimetry. Hence, polarimetric instruments inevitably require the information about the polarization properties of the optical system or the instrumental polarization. This can be determined through experiments, analysis or a combination of both. As the telescopes become larger and instruments become more complex, the instrumental polarization analysis has become all the more crucial (e.g., Anche et al., 2015; Harrington & Sueoka, 2016).

Diffractio: an open-source library for diffraction and interference calculations

“…In the field of Optics, several specialized high-quality packages have been developed in recent years: OpenFilters for multilayer and graded-index filter, 2 Meep for electromagnetic field computation using Finite Differences Time Domain method, 3 S4 for analysis of periodical structures with Rigorous Coupled Wave Analysis (RCWA), 4 AOtools for Adaptive optics modeling and analysis, 5 Prysm for developing optical systems, from camera lenses to chronographs; 6 PyAstroPol for Instrumental polarization analysis of the astronomical optics,, 7 Py-pol for Jones and Stokes-Mueller polarization optics, 8 HoloGen for high-speed hologram generation, 9 and PyPO for physical optics analysis, 10 among others.…”