Experimental Apparatus for Opposition Effect at Seoul National University

The Opposition Effect (OE) is an enhancement of the brightness of a reflecting light as the phase angle (the Sun-target-observer angle) approaches zero. The mechanisms have been studied both theoretically and experimentally and nowadays recognized that there are two major mechanisms, namely, coherent backscattering OE (CBOE) and shadow hiding OE (SHOE). From data analyses of an S-type asteroid Itokawa taken with the Hayabusa spacecraft onboard camera, it is suggested that the CBOE would be dominant at phase angle smaller than ~ 1.4 deg, while SHOE dominates at larger phase angles (M. Lee & M. Ishiguro, under review). The study on the physical parameters which affect the OE, such as size and composition, will lead us to find a way to disentangle each of them from observation. The experiments in lab, however, faces two major difficulties: (a) the detector blocks the incident light if phase angle is nearly zero and (b) incident and emission angles must be controlled with high angular resolution to prevent blurring of OEs at different phase angles in one measurement. In this presentation, we introduce a new apparatus which has been installed at Seoul National University to investigate the OE in our lab, and summarize the initial results. It will be a valuable starting point to establish infrastructure in Korea, and will shed light on the investigation of OE physics using laboratory simulants.