Polarization aberration Mueller matrix calculus and optimization theory for the plane symmetric optical system

Plane-symmetric reflective optical systems are commonly used for polarization remote sensing imaging due to their high resolution and contrast characteristics. One critical aspect that affects image contrast and resolution is the polarization aberrations that arise from the reflective surfaces. In previous research, we proposed a simplified polarization aberration calculus based on the Jones matrix. Now, we verify the feasibility of the simplified calculus through experiments. In addition, the previous Jones matrix calculus is extended to the Mueller matrix, which expands the applicability of this simplified calculus. Furthermore, we explore how the polarization aberrations affect the physical characteristics of the Mueller point spread matrix (MPSM). Finally, we establish a new merit function that can optimize the MPSM and wavefront at the same time, and the optimization result shows that the optimized optical system is closer to the polarization aberrations-free state. The wavefront quality still maintains good performance. This method is suitable for all the plane-symmetric optical systems requiring low polarization aberrations.