title: Integrating cavities: temporal response.
abstract: The temporal response of an integrating cavity is examined and compared with the results of a Monte Carlo analysis. An important parameter in the temporal response is the average distance d between successive reflections at the cavity wall; d was calculated for several specific cavity designs--spherical shell, cube, right circular cylinder, irregular tetrahedron, and prism; however, only the calculation for the spherical shell and the right circular cylinder will be presented. A completely general formulation of d for arbitrary cavity shapes is then derived, d =4V/S where V is the volume of the cavity, and S is the surface area of the cavity. Finally, we consider an arbitrary cavity shape for which each flat face is tangent to a single inscribed sphere of diameter D (a curved surface is considered to be an infinite number of flat surfaces). We will prove that for such a cavity d =2D/3, exactly the same as d for the inscribed sphere.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, Texas A&M University, Texas 77843-4242, USA. Fry@physics.tamu.edu
authors.forename: Edward S
authors.initials: ES
authors.lastname: Fry
authors.forename: Joe
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Musser
authors.forename: George W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Kattawar
authors.forename: Peng-Wang
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Zhai