Possibilities for measurement and compensation of stray DC electric fields acting on drag-free test masses

Abstract

DC electric fields can combine with test mass charging and thermal dielectric voltage noise to create significant force noise acting on the drag-free test masses in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational wave mission. This paper proposes a simple technique to measure and compensate average stray DC potentials at the mV level, yielding substantial reduction in this source of force noise. We discuss the attainable resolution for both flight and ground based experiments.