Depolarization of light in the pulse transmission through the medium with large inhomogeneities

A theoretical approach to the calculation of the time profile of the degree of polarization in an ultrashort pulse of polarized light is developed in the approximation of the basic polarization modes. It is demonstrated that the degree of polarization of linearly polarized light differs from zero at the initial time interval that is on the order of transport mean free time. In the medium with large inhomogeneities, the circular polarization exhibits slower decay on the time scale that is on the order of the interval between depolarizing collisions. The results are in agreement with the results of numerical calculations and experiments.