A coherent optical receiver including an optical transducer, an adaptive filter, and a processor updates the adaptive filter according to a metric derived in Stokes space. The optical transducer receives an optical signal corresponding to a modulated signal of symbols. The optical transducer also determines a first signal corresponding to a first polarization of the optical signal and a second signal corresponding to a second polarization of the optical signal. The adaptive filter recovers a first equalized signal and a second equalized signal from the first signal and the second signal. The first equalized signal and the second equalized signal form an equalized modulated signal of symbols. The processor calculates a set of Stokes parameters from the equalized modulated signal and updates the adaptive filter based on a metric derived from the set of Stokes parameters
