Hamburg 2009 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 20: Präzisionsmessungen I

Q 20.2: Talk

Tuesday, March 3, 2009, 14:15–14:30, Audi-A

Optical ranging and data communication for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) — •Johannes Eichholz, Juan Jose Esteban Delgado, Antonio Francisco García Marín, Iouri Bykov, Joachim Kullmann, Benjamin Sheard, Gerhard Heinzel, and Karsten Danzmann — Albert-Einstein-Institut, Hannover, Deutschland

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a spaceborne gravitational wave detector, an international project aimed at the detection and observation of gravitational waves in the frequency regime from 0.1 to 100 mHz. LISA consists of three identical spacecraft forming an equilateral triangle of about five million kilometers arm length, communicating via bidirectional laser links.

The inter-spacecraft interferometry signal will be obtained by the means of time-delayed interferometry (TDI). For this technique it is necessary to know the arm lengths up to an absolute error of 10 meters at most. The ranging scheme of choice is a spread spectrum modulation of the main science signal. This concept also allows clock synchronization by generating additional sidebands and data transfer between the spacecraft.

We present an experimental setup to determine the functionality of the proposed scheme, a lab-sized version of one arm, providing tests of the used devices under the LISA conditions of low light intensity and realistic noise sources.