Abstract: The behavior of polarization and spin density of polarized light waves propagating inside an anisotropic medium is considered.Differing from the light in an isotropic medium,the polarization states and helicity eigenstates of the light waves will evolve in the anisotropic medium.The evolutional spin densities of both the circularly and the elliptically polarized light waves have been calculated,and the effects relevant to the polarization state evolution have been analyzed.An optical analog of Einstein-de Haas experimental scenario has been suggested in order to test the angular momentum transfer between light waves and anisotropic media.Such evolutional states of light would find potential applications in the field of quantum information.

Key words: polarization, spin density, anisotropic medium