A universal method to improve the consistency between simulated results of celestial distribution of polarized light from analytical models and measured data

Abstract

Abstract The skylight polarization models can simulate the polarization state distribution of the skylight. These models are essential tools to extract the relation between the polarization distribution of skylight and the characteristic parameters of the atmosphere. Since the actual skylight polarization mode can be affected by various factors, the results obtained from the traditional analytical model are very different from those obtained from the field experiment. To improve the consistency between simulated results of analytical models and the real skylight polarization mode distribution, we introduce two modifications into analytical models: (1) the influence on light intensity under clear sky condition; (2) the flexibility of choosing different imaging models with accordance to experiment equipments. The experimental results demonstrate that the simulation results obtained from the Rayleigh model and singularity theory model under the proposed modifications are more consistent with measured skylight polarization mode data.