It is possible for a classical field theory to have two stable homogeneous ground states, only one of which is an absolute energy minimum. In the quantum version of the theory, the ground state of higher energy is a false vacuum, rendered unstable by barrier penetration. There exists a well-established semiclassical theory of the decay of such false vacuums. In this paper, we extend this theory to include the effects of gravitation. Contrary to naive expectation, these are not always negligible, and may sometimes be of critical importance, especially in the late stages of the decay process.

It is possible for a classical field theory to have two stable * Work supported in part by the Department of Energy under contract DE-AC03-76SF00515 and by the National Science Foundation under Grant l No. PHY77-22864.

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Abstract:The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instruments on-board both the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and the first Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS-1) spacecraft, with launch dates of October 2011 and December 2016 respectively, are cross-track scanners with an angular swath of˘56.06˝. A four-mirror Rotating Telescope Assembly (RTA) is used for scanning combined with a Half Angle Mirror (HAM) that directs light exiting from the RTA into the aft-optics. It has 14 Reflective Solar Bands (RSBs), seven Thermal Emissive Bands (TEBs) and a panchromatic Day Night Band (DNB). There are three internal calibration targets, the Solar Diffuser, the BlackBody and the Space View, that have fixed scan angles within the internal cavity of VIIRS. VIIRS has calibration requirements of 2% on RSB reflectance and as tight as 0.4% on TEB radiance that requires the sensor's gain change across the scan or Response Versus Scan angle (RVS) to be well quantified. A flow down of the top level calibration requirements put constraints on the characterization of the RVS to 0.2%-0.3% but there are no specified limitations on the magnitude of response change across scan. The RVS change across scan angle can vary significantly between bands with the RSBs having smaller changes of~2% and some TEBs having~10% variation. Within a band, the RVS has both detector and HAM side dependencies that vary across scan. Errors in the RVS characterization will contribute to image banding and striping artifacts if their magnitudes are above the noise level of the detectors. The RVS was characterized pre-launch for both S-NPP and JPSS-1 VIIRS and a comparison of the RVS curves between these two sensors will be discussed.

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Environmental Data Records (EDR) from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) have a need for Reflective Solar Band (RSB) calibration errors of less than 0.1%. Throughout the mission history of VIIRS, the overall instrument calibrated response scale factor (F factor) has been calculated with a manual process that uses data at least one week old and up to two weeks old until a new calibration Look Up Table (LUT) is put into operation. This one to two week lag routinely adds more than 0.1% calibration error. In this paper, we discuss trending the solar diffuser degradation (H factor), a key component of the F factor, improving H factor accuracy with improved bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) and attenuation screen LUTs , trending F factor, and how using RSB Automated Calibration (RSBAutoCal) will eliminate the lag and look-ahead extrapolation error.