Noise properties of the calculated linear polarization image

A method of calculating the 1D polarimeter imaging results from 3D polarimeter intensity measurements is introduced, and the influence of the detector noise on the calculated results is studied. Noise analysis is mainly carried out for the commonly used Pickering imaging method, Fessenkovs imaging method and modified Pickering imaging method with additive noise and shot noise as real noise sources. The analysis and simulation results show that, if the analyzer angles are evenly distributed over the half-circle, the additive noise variance of the calculated image is only related to the channel number N of the polarization imaging system, and the shot noise variance of the calculated image is related to the Stokes vector, the calculated angle, the channel number N and the polarization imaging modality. If the analyzer angles are not evenly distributed over the half-circle, concrete analysis should be made according to concrete circumstance. On the whole, the modified Pickering method is a recommended imaging modality by reason of it can suppress the noise of the calculated image because it has more channel numbers and it is not affected by the incident Stokes vector or the calculated angle.