Manifestation of the polarization incoherence of light in polarization self-action effects

On the basis of the beam tensor formalism proposed by F. I. Fedorov, the theory of polarization selfaction of radiation in isotropic resonant media is extended to the case of partial elliptic polarization of an electromagnetic wave. The influence of the degree of radiation polarization on the known polarization self-action effects is demonstrated and the self-polarization (depolarization) of light is predicted.