PreprintCC BY 4.0arXiv
The Electrodynamic Basis of Dichroism-Mediated Polarization Perception
Abstract
Humans see the polarization of light through entoptic percepts arising from the macula's Henle fiber layer, where xanthophyll pigments absorb preferentially across the radiating fibers. From the layer's complex dielectric tensor alone, Maxwell's equations in Berreman 4×4 form yield its Mueller matrix, set by four scalars {A,B,C,D}. Its intensity channel depends only on the dichroic pair A and B, which fix the percepts at a maximum contrast |B|/A≈0.05. One relation generates the whole dichroism-mediated family: Haidinger's brushes under a uniform field, their dark arms perpendicular to the E-vector; fractured brushes under spatially varying fields; and N-fold brushes under vector-vortex illumination.
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BibTeX
@misc{misson2026electrodynamic,
title = {{The Electrodynamic Basis of Dichroism-Mediated Polarization Perception}},
author = {Gary P. Misson and Dusan Sarenac and Dmitry. A. Pushin and Shelby E. Temple},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.13530},
eprint = {2609.13530},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.13530},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - The Electrodynamic Basis of Dichroism-Mediated Polarization Perception
AU - Gary P. Misson
AU - Dusan Sarenac
AU - Dmitry. A. Pushin
AU - Shelby E. Temple
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.13530
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.13530
AB - Humans see the polarization of light through entoptic percepts arising from the macula's Henle fiber layer, where xanthophyll pigments absorb preferentially across the radiating fibers. From the layer's complex dielectric tensor alone, Maxwell's equations in Berreman 4×4 form yield its Mueller matrix, set by four scalars {A,B,C,D}. Its intensity channel depends only on the dichroic pair A and B, which fix the percepts at a maximum contrast |B|/A≈0.05. One relation generates the whole dichroism-mediated family: Haidinger's brushes under a uniform field, their dark arms perpendicular to the E-vector; fractured brushes under spatially varying fields; and N-fold brushes under vector-vortex illumination.
ER -