Statistics of the Stokes parameters in speckle fields

A certain kind of speckle field can be described as a superposition of two fully developed and linearly polarized speckle patterns with an additional elliptically polarized coherent background intensity. The first-order statistics of the Stokes parameters have been studied analytically for the case in which the background intensity is zero and for which the probability density function of the moduli of the electric field follows a bivariate Rayleigh distribution. The probability density functions of the Stokes parameters have been further evaluated when the speckle field is superimposed upon a coherent background intensity.