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An acquisition duration from a power-law tail-energy tolerance extends a measurement until the validated envelope's unrecorded energy is below a chosen tolerance. For the model in power-law tail from a decaying rate envelope, with $\alpha >1$,The parent article integrates this envelope and inverts the tolerance. Writing $R=A{t}_0/[(\alpha -1)\epsilon ]$, its positive-duration requirement is $L=t_0(R^{1/(\alpha -1)}-1)$ when $R>1$; otherwise no additional duration is required.

In applying the rule, uncertainty in the exponent can dominate the result. With fixed $A,t_0$ and $\epsilon$, differentiating the active branch givesThe required duration decreases with a larger exponent. For a guaranteed parameter range, a validated lower bound on a power-law tail exponent is therefore more useful than its best-fit value alone. Since $(1+u/t_0{)}^{-\alpha }$ decreases with $\alpha$ for every $u\ge 0$, using the smallest allowed exponent bounds the entire tail, not just one selected sample.

For an original design example, let $A=0.10\mathrm{W}$, $t_0=10\mathrm{ns}$ and $\epsilon =0.005\mathrm{nJ}$. A nominal exponent $\alpha =3$ gives initial allowance $0.5\mathrm{nJ}$, $R=100$ and $L=90\mathrm{ns}$. If the validated exponent range is instead $2\le \alpha \le 3$, its slowest permitted tail has initial allowance $1.0\mathrm{nJ}$ and requires $L=1990\mathrm{ns}$. The nominal duration does not guarantee the tolerance over that range. Upper bounds on $A$ and $t_0$ can likewise be used conservatively because increasing either raises the envelope pointwise.

If the allowed exponents reach one or below, these envelope assumptions alone no longer supply a finite all-time energy guarantee. This is a limitation of the bound, not proof that the actual pulse has infinite energy. The model must also hold throughout the unobserved interval: later pulses, persistent backgrounds or an electrical detector tail misidentified as optical power can invalidate it. NIST's independent receiver-response measurement illustrates this last experimental distinction.^[ref] The power-law examples are original conditional models, not observed decay laws attributed to that apparatus.

A time-dependent decay-rate envelope bounds a nonnegative signal using a lower bound on its instantaneous decay rate. If $P$ is absolutely continuous on finite intervals, $P(b)\le A$ and $P^{\prime }\le -k(t)P$ almost everywhere for locally integrable $k(t)\ge 0$, thenThe differential inequality for an exponential tail envelope article proves this comparison using an integrating factor and gives a piecewise-constant example. A strictly positive constant lower bound on $k$ gives exponential decay, but a positive rate at every instant need not supply such a lower bound.

An original example takes $k(t)=\alpha /(t-b+t_0)$ with $t_0>0$ and $\alpha >0$. Its integrated rate is logarithmic, soThis power-law tail from a decaying rate envelope tends to zero for every positive $\alpha$. Its envelope energy is nevertheless finite only when $\alpha >1$, in which caseFor original chosen $A=0.20\mathrm{W}$, $t_0=5\mathrm{ns}$ and $\alpha =2$, the allowance is $1.0\mathrm{nJ}$. After a further $45\mathrm{ns}$ it is at most $0.10\mathrm{nJ}$. The remaining energy decreases algebraically rather than exponentially.

At $\alpha =1$ the integrated envelope diverges logarithmically despite its power tending to zero. This does not prove that every signal below it has infinite energy; it means these assumptions alone supply no finite all-time energy bound. Taking the envelope itself gives a mathematical counterexample to the claim that pointwise decay implies integrable energy.

An experimental rate law therefore needs both temporal validity and an integrability check before it bounds missed optical energy. A measured detector tail is not automatically the true power profile; NIST's primary calibration procedure measures the receiver response separately.^[ref] The power-law example is an independent comparison model, not a reported tail law of that apparatus.