Sample LWS Cosmic Ray Glitches

Unfortunately, no one really knows the true size or shape of the LWS beam. All models below are based on Optical Ray-Tracing and are not necessarily correct and have not been confirmed in tests. In fact, some tests show the center of the beam to be highly elliptical and so it is known that the models below have deficiencies. A definitive assessment of the beam size and shape will be made during the Performance Verification Phase (PV) in orbit.

A general and non-accurate rule of thumb is: the FWHP of the LWS beam is about 100" but difraction causes a region of 100" or 1.2 ("/um) x the wavelength in microns to be sampled, whichever is greater.

Below we show beam profiles based on Optical Ray-Tracing Models of the LWS Beam at the wavelengths of 46, 56, 66, 76, 86, 102, 142, and 178 microns.

THESE ARE ONLY MODELS!

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LWS MODEL BEAM at 46 um. All contours are labeled, the maximum value is 100, the minimum contour is 0.1, minimum color is about 0.0001

Contours: 0.1,1,5,25,50,75,100
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