Erratum: Stokes polarimeter performance: General noise model and analysis (Applied Optics (2018) 57 (4283) DOI: 10.1364/AO.57.004283)

On page 4285 of the original paper [1], the unnumbered equation appearing immediately before the numbered Eq. (5) was given incorrectly. The covariance matrix should be diagonal, i.e., (Formul Presented). This change affects one of the assertions given in the Conclusion, where it is stated that “Any system optimized under IG noise will be “equivariant” under PP noise.” The corrected form of the matrix is obviously not equivariant. Likewise, the covariance matrices for Tyo’s DVRFP and Zallat’s DRRFP polarimeter (Tables 9 and 10 on page 4294) demonstrate that these systems will not be equivariant as well. Thus, this assertion is incorrect. The remainder of the paper is unaffected, and these changes do not affect the code provided with the paper for calculating the covariance matrices.