Study on optical electron polarimeter and measurement of the relative Stokes parameters of weak light

In this paper, we present the research on an optical electron polarimeter, which is used to determine the polarization of an incident electron beam by measuring the relative Stokes parameters of the fluorescence emitted from the He gas following the impact excitation with the electron beam. The fundamental theory of the optical electron polarimeter is discussed with the 3³P→2³S transition of He. The structure and performance of the instrument are described, which are different in some aspects from previous works. The arrangement of the experiment for measuring the relative Stokes parameters of linearly polarized weak light is also investigated, which actually involves the same processes as the polarization measurement with the incident electron beam. The results obtained are in agreement with the theoretical prediction.