Abstract
ESA’s L3 Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission contains a mechanism to compensate for out-of-plane angles between the received and emitted beams of the three satellites. Depending on the configuration of this Point-Ahead Angle Mechanism (PAAM) it is expected to contribute readout noise through Differential Wavefront Sensing (DWS). This was investigated with LISA Pathfinder (LPF) through a dedicated investigation. One of the two free-falling test masses was rotated via the on-board electrostatic actuators while the resulting angular noise in the differential interferometer between the two test masses was measured. For angles between −250 μrad to 250 μrad and corresponding contrast in the range of 59.4 % to 97.9 % an increased spectral density was found. The differential displacement noise remains almost unchanged for these misalignments.
Highlights
The performance of Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Pathfinder (LPF)’s Optical Metrology System is about two orders of magnitude better than the requirement and is subject to ongoing investigations throughout the mission [1].Differential Wavefront Sensing as a part of this subsystem is used to control four out of six angular degrees-of-freedom of the two test masses
Depending on the configuration of this Point-Ahead Angle Mechanism (PAAM) it is expected to contribute readout noise through Differential Wavefront Sensing (DWS). This was investigated with LISA Pathfinder (LPF) through a dedicated investigation
One of the two free-falling test masses was rotated via the on-board electrostatic actuators while the resulting angular noise in the differential interferometer between the two test masses was measured
Summary
The performance of LPF’s Optical Metrology System is about two orders of magnitude better than the requirement and is subject to ongoing investigations throughout the mission [1].Differential Wavefront Sensing (see [2]) as a part of this subsystem is used to control four out of six angular degrees-of-freedom of the two test masses. ESA’s L3 Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission contains a mechanism to compensate for out-of-plane angles between the received and emitted beams of the three satellites. Depending on the configuration of this Point-Ahead Angle Mechanism (PAAM) it is expected to contribute readout noise through Differential Wavefront Sensing (DWS).
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