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DOE OSTI2018

Color Confinement, Hadron Dynamics, and Hadron Spectroscopy from Light-Front Holography and Superconformal Algebra

The QCD light-front Hamiltonian equation H L F Ψ = M 2 Ψ derived from quantization at fixed LF time τ = t + z / c provides a causal, frame-independent method for computing hadron spectroscopy as well as dynamical observables such as structure functions, transverse momentum distributions, and distribution amplitudes. The QCD Lagrangian with zero quark mass has no explicit mass scale. de Alfaro, Fubini, and Furlan (dAFF) have made an important observation that a mass scale can appear in the equations of motion without affecting the conformal invariance of the action if one adds a term to the Hamiltonian proportional to the dilatation operator or the special conformal operator. If one applies the dAFF procedure to the QCD light-front Hamiltonian, it leads to a color-confining potential κ 4 ζ 2 for mesons, where ζ 2 is the LF radial variable conjugate to the q q ¯ invariant mass squared. The same result, including spin terms, is obtained using light-front holography, the duality between light-front dynamics and A d S 5 , if one modifies the A d S 5 action by the dilaton e κ 2 z 2 in the fifth dimension z . When one generalizes this procedure using superconformal algebra, the resulting light-front eigensolutions provide a unified Regge spectroscopy of meson, baryon, and tetraquarks, including remarkable supersymmetric relations between the masses of mesons and baryons and a universal Regge slope. The pion q q ¯ eigenstate has zero mass at m q = 0 . The superconformal relations also can be extended to heavy-light quark mesons and baryons. This approach also leads to insights into the physics underlying hadronization at the amplitude level. I will also discuss the remarkable features of the Poincaré invariant, causal vacuum defined by light-front quantization and its impact on the interpretation of the cosmological constant. AdS/QCD also predicts the analytic form of the nonperturbative running coupling α s ( Q 2 ) ∝ e - Q 2 / 4 κ 2 . The mass scale κ underlying hadron masses can be connected to the parameter Λ M S ¯ in the QCD running coupling by matching the nonperturbative dynamics to the perturbative QCD regime. The result is an effective coupling α s ( Q 2 ) defined at all momenta. One obtains empirically viable predictions for spacelike and timelike hadronic form factors, structure functions, distribution amplitudes, and transverse momentum distributions. Finally, I address the interesting question of whether the momentum sum rule is valid for nuclear structure functions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Snapshot multifocal light field microscopy

Light field microscopy (LFM) is an emerging technology for high-speed wide-field 3D imaging by capturing 4D light field of 3D volumes. However, its 3D imaging capability comes at a cost of lateral resolution. In addition, the lateral resolution is not uniform across depth in the light field dconvolution reconstructions. To address these problems, here, we propose a snapshot multifocal light field microscopy (MFLFM) imaging method. The underlying concept of the MFLFM is to collect multiple focal shifted light fields simultaneously. We show that by focal stacking those focal shifted light fields, the depth-of-field (DOF) of the LFM can be further improved but without sacrificing the lateral resolution. Also, if all differently focused light fields are utilized together in the deconvolution, the MFLFM could achieve a high and uniform lateral resolution within a larger DOF. We present a house-built MFLFM system by placing a diffractive optical element at the Fourier plane of a conventional LFM. The optical performance of the MFLFM are analyzed and given. Both simulations and proof-of-principle experimental results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness and benefits of the MFLFM. We believe that the proposed snapshot MFLFM has potential to enable high-speed and high resolution 3D imaging applications.

He, Kuan↗

DOE OSTI2012

Actual-Waste Testing of Ultraviolet Light to Augment the Enhanced Chemical Cleaning of SRS Sludge

In support of Savannah River Site (SRS) tank closure efforts, the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) conducted Real Waste Testing (RWT) to evaluate Enhanced Chemical Cleaning (ECC), an alternative to the baseline 8 wt% oxalic acid (OA) chemical cleaning technology for tank sludge heel removal. ECC utilizes a more dilute OA solution (2 wt%) and an oxalate destruction technology using ozonolysis with or without the application of ultraviolet (UV) light. SRNL conducted tests of the ECC process using actual SRS waste material from Tanks 5F and 12H. The previous phase of testing involved testing of all phases of the ECC process (sludge dissolution, OA decomposition, product evaporation, and deposition tank storage) but did not involve the use of UV light in OA decomposition. The new phase of testing documented in this report focused on the use of UV light to assist OA decomposition, but involved only the OA decomposition and deposition tank portions of the process. Compared with the previous testing at analogous conditions without UV light, OA decomposition with the use of UV light generally reduced time required to reach the target of <100 mg/L oxalate. This effect was the most pronounced during the initial part of the decomposition batches, when pH was <4. For the later stages of each OA decomposition batch, the increase in OA decomposition rate with use of the UV light appeared to be minimal. Testing of the deposition tank storage of the ECC product resulted in analogous soluble concentrations regardless of the use or non-use of UV light in the ECC reactor.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

DOE OSTI2014

Creation of a U.S. Phosphorescent OLED Lighting Panel Manufacturing Facility

Universal Display Corporation (UDC) has pioneered high efficacy phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED™) technology to enable the realization of an exciting new form of high quality, energy saving solid-date lighting. In laboratory test devices, we have demonstrated greater than 100 lm/W conversion efficacy. In this program, Universal Display will demonstrate the scalability of its proprietary UniversalPHOLED technology and materials for the manufacture of white OLED lighting panels that meet commercial lighting targets. Moser Baer Technologies will design and build a U.S.- based pilot facility. The objective of this project is to establish a pilot phosphorescent OLED (PHOLED) manufacturing line in the U.S. Our goal is that at the end of the project, prototype lighting panels could be provided to U.S. luminaire manufacturers for incorporation into products to facilitate the testing of design concepts and to gauge customer acceptance, so as to facilitate the growth of the embryonic U.S. OLED lighting industry. In addition, the team will provide a cost of ownership analysis to quantify production costs including OLED performance metrics which relate to OLED cost such as yield, materials usage, cycle time, substrate area, and capital depreciation. This project was part of a new DOE initiative designed to help establish and maintain U.S. leadership in this program will support key DOE objectives by showing a path to meet Department of Energy Solid-State Lighting Manufacturing Roadmap cost targets, as well as meeting its efficiency targets by demonstrating the energy saving potential of our technology through the realization of greater than 76 lm/W OLED lighting panels by 2012.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2016

Two-Column Aerosol Project: Aerosol Light Extinction Measurements Field Campaign Report

We deployed Aerodyne Research Inc.’s first Cavity Attenuated Phase Shift extinction (CAPS PMex) monitor (built by Aerodyne) that measures light extinction by using a visible-light-emitting diode (LED) as a light source, a sample cell incorporating two high-reflectivity mirrors centered at the wavelength of the LED, and a vacuum photodiode detector in Cape Cod in 2012/13 for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Climate Research Facility’s Two-Column Aerosol Project (TCAP). The efficacy of this instrument is based on the fact that aerosols are broadband scatterers and absorbers of light. The input LED is square-wave modulated and passed through the sample cell that distorts it due to exponential decay by aerosol light absorption and scattering; this is measured at the detector. The amount of phase shift of the light at the detector is used to determine the light extinction. This extinction measurement provides an absolute value, requiring no calibration. The goal was to compare the CAPS performance with direct measurements of absorption with ARM’s baseline photoacoustic soot spectrometer (PASS-3) and nephelometer instruments to evaluate its performance.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2019

A Demonstration of Light-Augmented Calorimetry For Low-Energy Electrons in Liquid Argon.

The ability to resolve electrons with energies as low as 5 MeV in liquid argon (LAr) is important for future studies of astrophysical neutrinos in liquid argon time projection chambers (LArTPCs). Existing methods for measuring the energy of electromagnetic showers in LArTPCs rely solely on charge-based reconstruction which requires correcting for assumed electron-ion recombination. However, LAr scintillation light has the potential to improve energy reconstruction over charge-based measurements alone. Here we present a demonstration of a light-augmented calorimetric technique for low-energy electrons in LAr that foregoes the need to correct for recombination. A sample of Michel electrons from stopping cosmic muons is collected in LArIAT (Liquid Argon In A Testbeam), a single-phase LArTPC at Fermilab’s Test Beam Facility. Michel electron energy spectra are reconstructed using both a traditional charge-based approach as well as a more holistic approach that incorporates both charge and light. A maximum-likelihood fitter, using LArIAT’s well-tuned simulation, is developed for combining these quantities to achieve optimal energy resolution. A sample of isolated electrons with Ee < 60 MeV is then simulated to better determine the energy resolution of this topology. Due to LArIAT’s low wire noise, the addition of light is not found to significantly improve upon the achieved charged-based resolution of σ/E ≃ 9%/√E ⊕ 1%. However, additional samples are generated with varying wire noise levels and light yields to gauge the impact of light-augmented calorimetry in large LArTPCs such as DUNE and SBND. At a charge-readout signal-to-noise of ≈10, the energy resolution for low-energy electrons is improved by ∼15%, ∼25%, and ∼45% over charge-only calorimetry for average light yields of 10, 20, and 100 pe/MeV, respectively.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗

DOE OSTI2019

Final Report: Development of High Light Output Plastic Scintillating and Wavelength-Shifting Fibers

Scintillating plastic optical fibers have increasingly been used as radiation detectors in nuclear and high energy physics research since they were first made in 1965. It is proposed to make fibers which are at least a factor of 2 brighter and thereby improve detection efficiency, spatial resolution and energy resolution. When radiation strikes existing plastic scintillator only the singlet excited states rather than the triplet excited states are used to produce scintillation light. This means only 25% of the deposited energy is available to produce scintillation light. Utilization of phosphorescent molecules should therefore drastically improve the light output. This process has been called “triplet harvesting” and has been successfully demonstrated in improving the light output of “Organic Light Emitting Diodes, OLEDs”. The objective of this proposal is to produce a bright scintillating fiber using triplet harvesting and a light output time constant of a few nanoseconds. In addition, an increase in the light containment will be achieved by using a new low refractive index cladding material. In Phase 1, polystyrene plastic material will be used. Organo-metallic phosphorescent and conventional dyes will be dissolved in the plastic to demonstrate both the desired brightness and fast decay time. Photophysical properties will be measured. Scintillating fiber will be made. Commercial benefits of this new material include providing improved detection of rare events such as the HIGGS BOSON at the billion dollar high energy facilities. and monitoring stored radioactive material. The new material will also play an important role in making improved imaging detection facilities for protecting civilians and facilities against CBRN-E threats. In addition, the resolution will be improved for medical brachytherapy. The results of selected organic dyes dissolved in a polystyrene matrix performing as scintillating samples are presented. The proposed organo-metallic phosphorescent dyes were not used due to lengthy synthesis times and cost. Rather, an attempt was made to harvest triplet energy from polystyrene using appropriately wavelength-matched dyes. Samples studied include films and blocks. Fibers were not manufactured as a suitable set of dyes was not determined.

07 ISOTOPE AND RADIATION SOURCES↗

DOE OSTI2018

Low-Cost Scaffold-Reinforced Perovskite Solar Modules with Integrated Light Management

Perovskite solar cells are a promising new solar technology because they are highly efficient and cheaper to manufacture compared to silicon solar cells. However, perovskites suffer from mechanical and thermal fragility, important factors limiting device lifetimes, which leads to problems in making reliable solar cells. In our recent work, we showed how to make perovskite solar cells that look like the eye of a fly by subdividing a solar cell into thousands of microcells that are surrounded by a honeycomb-shaped reinforcing scaffold. This discovery was a new architecture called a compound solar cell (CSC). The perovskite is effectively shielded from mechanical forces by the scaffold and leads to robust solar cells that are no longer fragile. This was a promising advancement, but the drawback of the scaffold structure is that the scaffold absorbs light from the solar cell and leads to a reduced efficiency. In this project, we address this reduced efficiency by integrating concentrating lens arrays into CSCs to focus any incident light away from the scaffolds. Perovskite is deposited into the microcells between these scaffolds, and upon sunlight exposure, the lenses concentrate light into the microcells and away from the insulating scaffolds, resulting in significantly improved efficiencies. The lenses redirect over 90% of the light that otherwise would have been incident on the scaffolds into the microcells leading to a corresponding 90% recovery of efficiency. Furthermore, the lenses show passive light tracking capabilities, meaning as the angle of incident light changes (simulating how the sunlight moves across the sky during the course of the day), a majority of the light is still focused into the perovskite microcells. The improved efficiency and passive tracking capabilities suggest that lens-integrated CSCs are a potential pathway to high-performance, robust, commercially viable perovskite solar cells.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2020

Probing Coherent States of Light and Matter in Two-Dimensional Semiconductors. Final Report

The ability to enhance light-matter interactions in engineered optical environments is well-established in micro- and nano-photonics. New classes of materials bring new rich correlations between spin, momentum, and light polarization that can be exploited in these photonic systems for information processing and low-power electronics. Interfacing these novel material features with strong optical interactions suggests the compelling capability to create hybrid light-matter systems harnessing low-energy and protected material properties such as spin. The long-term objective of this program was to investigate the interplay between pseudospin in 2D materials and light, revealing new coherent phenomena. The materials studied are the monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), which support polarization-sensitive optical transitions when isolated to a single sub-nanometer crystal layer in thickness. In particular, monolayer TMD semiconductors such as MoS 2 exhibit degenerate valleys in momentum space with distinct spin character. These valleys can be separately addressed by circularly polarized light, providing a tool for manipulation. Integrating this valley pseudospin of excitons in monolayer TMDs with engineered strong optical excitations to create novel coherent phenomena was a key long-term goal of this research. The scope of this research primarily focused on studying light-matter interactions of valley-sensitive excitations in monolayer TMDs. The scope also included the integration of monolayer materials that support valley-polarized emission into photonic devices. This approach extends prior work on exciton-polaritons in 2D materials toward a platform with far more control and improved light input and output characteristics to aid scalability of these polarization-sensitive phenomena to many-body, long-range optical networks. During the course of the five-year Early Career program, the approaches led to successful progress on each proposed aim. Initial successful work seeded additional research that developed from the main themes, while this program focus evolved toward coherent manipulation of valley polaritons and integration with photonics. Both of these advanced topics set the stage for new capabilities in future innovative research. The results of this project provide advances in materials and methods relevant for new visions of opto-electronics and photonics that can improve information processing in an era of increased focus on quantum and coherent phenomena. The research has also contributed to the training of two postdoctoral scholars and five graduate students.

2D Materials↗

DOE OSTI2015

The molecular dimension of microbial species: 3. Comparative genomics of Synechococcus strains with different light responses and in situ diel transcription patterns of associated putative ecotypes in the Mushroom Spring microbial mat

Genomes were obtained for three closely related strains of Synechococcus that are representative of putative ecotypes (PEs) that predominate at different depths in the 1 mm-thick, upper-green layer in the 60°C mat of Mushroom Spring, Yellowstone National Park, and exhibit different light adaptation and acclimation responses. The genomes were compared to the published genome of a previously obtained, closely related strain from a neighboring spring, and differences in both gene content and orthologous gene alleles between high-light-adapted and low-light-adapted strains were identified. Evidence of genetic differences that relate to adaptation to light intensity and/or quality, CO 2 uptake, nitrogen metabolism, organic carbon metabolism, and uptake of other nutrients were found between strains of the different putative ecotypes. In situ diel transcription patterns of genes, including genes unique to either low-light-adapted or high-light-adapted strains and different alleles of an orthologous photosystem gene, revealed that expression is fine-tuned to the different light environments experienced by ecotypes prevalent at various depths in the mat. This study suggests that strains of closely related PEs have different genomic adaptations that enable them to inhabit distinct ecological niches while living in close proximity within a microbial community.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2021

Out of the Dark and Into the Light: A New View of Phytochrome Photobodies

Light is a critical environmental stimulus for plants, serving as an energy source via photosynthesis and a signal for developmental programming. Plants perceive light through various light-responsive proteins, termed photoreceptors. Phytochromes are red-light photoreceptors that are highly conserved across kingdoms. In the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana , phytochrome B serves as a light and thermal sensor, mediating physiological processes such as seedling germination and establishment, hypocotyl growth, chlorophyll biogenesis, and flowering. In response to red light, phytochromes convert to a biologically active form, translocating from the cytoplasm into the nucleus and further compartmentalizes into subnuclear compartments termed photobodies. PhyB photobodies regulate phytochrome-mediated signaling and physiological outputs. However, photobody function, composition, and biogenesis remain undefined since their discovery. Based on photobody cellular dynamics and the properties of internal components, photobodies have been suggested to undergo liquid-liquid phase separation, a process by which some membraneless compartments form. Here, we explore photobodies as environmental sensors, examine the role of their protein constituents, and outline the biophysical perspective that photobodies may be undergoing liquid-liquid phase separation. Understanding the molecular, cellular, and biophysical processes that shape how plants perceive light will help in engineering improved sunlight capture and fitness of important crops.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2016

SPITZER SPACE TELESCOPE MID-IR LIGHT CURVES OF NEPTUNE

We have used the Spitzer Space Telescope in 2016 February to obtain high cadence, high signal-to-noise, 17 hr duration light curves of Neptune at 3.6 and 4.5 μ m. The light curve duration was chosen to correspond to the rotation period of Neptune. Both light curves are slowly varying with time, with full amplitudes of 1.1 mag at 3.6 μ m and 0.6 mag at 4.5 μ m. We have also extracted sparsely sampled 18 hr light curves of Neptune at W1 (3.4 μ m) and W2 (4.6 μ m) from the Wide-feld Infrared Survey Explorer ( WISE )/ NEOWISE archive at six epochs in 2010–2015. These light curves all show similar shapes and amplitudes compared to the Spitzer light curves but with considerable variation from epoch to epoch. These amplitudes are much larger than those observed with Kepler / K 2 in the visible (amplitude ∼0.02 mag) or at 845 nm with the Hubble Space Telescope ( HST ) in 2015 and at 763 nm in 2016 (amplitude ∼0.2 mag). We interpret the Spitzer and WISE light curves as arising entirely from reflected solar photons, from higher levels in Neptune’s atmosphere than for K 2. Methane gas is the dominant opacity source in Neptune’s atmosphere, and methane absorption bands are present in the HST 763 and 845 nm, WISE W1, and Spitzer 3.6 μ m filters.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF VERY LIGHT INTERNALLY SUBSONIC AGN JETS IN RADIO-MODE AGN FEEDBACK

Radio-mode active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback plays a key role in the evolution of galaxy groups and clusters. Its physical origin lies in the kiloparsec-scale interaction of AGN jets with the intracluster medium. Large-scale jet simulations often initiate light internally supersonic jets with density contrast 0.01 < η < 1. Here we argue for the first time for the importance of very light ( η < 0.01) internally subsonic jets. We investigated the shapes of young X-ray cavities produced in a suite of hydrodynamic simulations, and found that bottom-wide cavities are always produced by internally subsonic jets, while internally supersonic jets inflate cylindrical, center-wide, or top-wide cavities. We found examples of real cavities with shapes analogous to those inflated in our simulations by internally subsonic and internally supersonic jets, suggesting a dichotomy of AGN jets according to their internal Mach numbers. We further studied the long-term cavity evolution, and found that old cavities resulted from light jets spread along the jet direction, while those produced by very light jets are significantly elongated along the perpendicular direction. The northwestern ghost cavity in Perseus is pancake shaped, providing tentative evidence for the existence of very light jets. Our simulations show that very light internally subsonic jets decelerate faster and rise much slower in the intracluster medium than light internally supersonic jets, possibly depositing a larger fraction of jet energy to cluster cores and alleviating the problem of low coupling efficiencies found previously. The internal Mach number points to the jet’s energy content, and internally subsonic jets are energetically dominated by non-kinetic energy, such as thermal energy, cosmic rays, or magnetic fields.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2016

The Palomar Transient Factory and RR Lyrae: The metallicity–light curve relation based on AB-type RR Lyrae in the Kepler field

The wide-field synoptic sky surveys, known as the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) and the intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF), will accumulate a large number of known and new RR Lyrae. These RR Lyrae are good tracers to study the substructure of the Galactic halo if their distance, metallicity, and galactocentric velocity can be measured. Candidates of halo RR Lyrae can be identified from their distance and metallicity before requesting spectroscopic observations for confirmation. This is because both quantities can be obtained via their photometric light curves, because the absolute V-band magnitude for RR Lyrae is correlated with metallicity, and the metallicity can be estimated using a metallicity–light curve relation. To fully utilize the PTF and iPTF light-curve data in related future work, it is necessary to derive the metallicity–light curve relation in the native PTF/iPTF R-band photometric system. In this work, we derived such a relation using the known ab-type RR Lyrae located in the Kepler field, and it is found to be [Fe/H]{sub PTF}=−4.089--7.346P+1.280ϕ{sub 31} (where P is pulsational period and ϕ{sub 31} is one of the Fourier parameters describing the shape of the light curve), with a dispersion of 0.118 dex. We tested our metallicity–light curve relation with new spectroscopic observations of a few RR Lyrae in the Kepler field, as well as several data sets available in the literature. Our tests demonstrated that the derived metallicity–light curve relation could be used to estimate metallicities for the majority of the RR Lyrae, which are in agreement with the published values.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2018

U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Air Conditioning Fuel Use and Impact of Solar/Thermal Control Technologies

To reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from mobile air conditioning (A/C) systems, 'U.S. Light-Duty Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards' identified solar/thermal technologies such as solar control glazings, solar reflective paint, and active and passive cabin ventilation in an off-cycle credit menu. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researchers developed a sophisticated analysis process to calculate U.S. light-duty A/C fuel use that was used to assess the impact of these technologies, leveraging thermal and vehicle simulation analysis tools developed under previous U.S. Department of Energy projects. Representative U.S. light-duty driving behaviors and weighting factors including time-of-day of travel, trip duration, and time between trips were characterized and integrated into the analysis. In addition, U.S. weather conditions weighted based on light-duty vehicle registrations were generated and used for the analysis. Three representative vehicle types for the light-duty fleet were selected based on registration data containing vehicle size information. These key inputs were used to support a weighted parametric analysis that quantified vehicle thermal load, vehicle accessory load, and vehicle fuel use. This analysis estimates that 7.6 billion gallons of fuel a year are used in the United States for vehicle A/C, equivalent to 6.1% of the total national light-duty vehicle fuel use. This equates to 30.0 gallons/year per vehicle or 23.5 grams CO 2 per mile (g/mi) for an average U.S. light-duty vehicle. A/C is a significant contributor to national fuel use; therefore, technologies that reduce A/C loads have an opportunity to reduce fuel consumption, reduce imported oil, and improve energy security. Implementing solar control glass reduced the CO 2 emissions by 2.0 g/mi and the reduction due to solar reflective paint was 0.8 g/mi. The active and passive ventilation strategies as defined in this analysis only reduced emissions by 0.1 and 0.2 g/mi, respectively. This analysis shows the potential to reduce operational costs, A/C fuel use, and CO 2 emissions by implementing advanced vehicle climate control technologies including the solar/thermal technologies.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

NASA NTRS1974

Results from computer program for analyzing scattered light suppression systems for large space telescope

A computer program was developed which has the ability to analyze the performance of most light suppression systems so as to predict the amount of scattered light which will reach the image plane for various conditions of unwanted light input from the sun, earth, or moon. This program was used to analyze three different configurations of the large space telescope (LST): an LST with a truncated sunshield, an LST with an extended cylindrical sunshield, and an LST with a conical sunshield which is tilted upwards. The computer program gives the user detailed information as to the paths taken by the unwanted stray light to reach the image plane, and pinpoints those portions of the light suppression system which contribute most of the stray light, so that areas requiring improvements are evident. Certain design guide lines were formulated for any light suppression system selected for the LST, and one which meets these requirements (the tilted sunshade) is described in detail.

Tifft, W. G.↗

NASA NTRS1975

Conspicuity of target lights: The influence of color

The conspicuity (or attention-getting qualities) were investigated of foveally-equated, colored lights, when seen against a star background. Subjects who were periodically engaged in a distracting cockpit task were required to search a large visual field and report the appearance of a target light as quickly as possible. Targets were red, yellow, white, green, and blue, and appeared either as steady or as flashing lights. Results indicate that red targets were missed more frequently and responded to more slowly than lights of other hues. Yellow targets were acquired more slowly than white, green, or blue targets; responses to white targets were significantly slower than responses to green or blue targets. In general, flashing lights were superior to steady lights, but this was not found for all hues. For red, the 2 Hz flash was superior to all other flash rates and to the steady light, none of which differed significantly from each other. Over all hues, conspicuity was found to peak at 2-3 Hz. Response time was found to be fastest, generally, for targets appearing at between 3 and 8 from the center of the visual field. However, this pattern was not repeated for every hue. Conspicuity response times suggest a complex relationship between hue and position in the visual field that is explained only partially by retinal sensitivity.

Connors, M. M.↗

NASA NTRS1978

System for the measurement of ultra-low stray light levels

An apparatus is described for measuring the effectiveness of stray light suppression light shields and baffle arrangements used in optical space experiments and large space telescopes. The light shield and baffle arrangement and a telescope model are contained in a vacuum chamber. A source of short, high-powered light energy illuminates portions of the light shield and baffle arrangement and reflects a portion of same to a photomultiplier tube by virtue of multipath scattering. The resulting signal is transferred to time-channel electronics timed by the firing of the high energy light source allowing time discrimination of the signal thereby enabling the light scattered and suppressed by the model to be distinguished from the walls and holders around the apparatus.

Wyman, C. L.↗