Generalized Poincaré sphere.

We present a generalized Poincaré sphere (G sphere) and generalized Stokes parameters (G parameters), as a geometric representation, which unifies the descriptors of a variety of vector fields. Unlike the standard Poincaré sphere, the radial dimension in the G sphere is not used to describe the partially polarized field. The G sphere is constructed by extending the basic Jones vector bases to the general vector bases with the continuously changeable ellipticity (spin angular momentum, SAM) and the higher dimensional orbital angular momentum (OAM). The north and south poles of different spherical shells in the G sphere represent the pair of different orthogonal vector basis with different ellipticity (SAM) and the opposite OAM. The higher-order Poincaré spheres are just the two special spherical shells of the G sphere. We present a quite flexible scheme, which can generate all the vector fields described in the G sphere.