Optical suppression of tilt-to-length coupling in the LISA long-arm interferometer

Chwalla, M. et al. (2020) Optical suppression of tilt-to-length coupling in the LISA long-arm interferometer. Physical Review Applied, 14(1), 014030. (doi: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.14.014030)

[img]
Preview
Text
222513.pdf - Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution.

1MB

Abstract

The arm length and the isolation in space enable the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to probe for signals unattainable on the ground, opening a window to the subhertz gravitational-wave universe. The coupling of unavoidable angular spacecraft jitter into the longitudinal displacement measurement, an effect known as tilt-to-length (TTL) coupling, is critical for realizing the required sensitivity of picometer / √ Hz . An ultrastable interferometer test bed has been developed in order to investigate this issue and validate mitigation strategies in a setup representative of LISA and in this paper it is operated in the long-arm interferometer configuration. The test bed is fitted with a flat-top beam generator to simulate the beam received by a LISA spacecraft. We demonstrate a reduction of TTL coupling between this flat-top beam and a Gaussian reference beam via the introduction of two- and four-lens imaging systems. TTL coupling factors below ± 25 μ m / rad for beam tilts within ± 300 μ rad are obtained by careful optimization of the system. Moreover, we show that the additional TTL coupling due to lateral-alignment errors of elements of the imaging system can be compensated by introducing lateral shifts of the detector and vice versa. These findings help validate the suitability of this noise-reduction technique for the LISA long-arm interferometer.

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Robertson, Dr David and Ward, Professor Henry and Perreur-Lloyd, Mr Michael and Killow, Dr Christian
Authors: Chwalla, M., Danzmann, K., Dovale Álvarez, M., Esteban Delgado, J.J., Fernández Barranco, G., Fitzsimons, E., Gerberding, O., Heinzel, G., Killow, C.J., Lieser, M., Perreur-Lloyd, M., Robertson, D.I., Rohr, J.M., Schuster, S., Schwarze, T.S., Tröbs, M., Wanner, G., and Ward, H.
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
Research Centre:College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research
Journal Name:Physical Review Applied
Publisher:American Physical Society
ISSN:2331-7019
ISSN (Online):2331-7019
Published Online:10 July 2020
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 2020 American Physical Society
First Published:First published in Physical Review Applied 14(1): 014030
Publisher Policy:Reproduced under a Creative Commons License
Related URLs:

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record