Related papers: Increased Brownian force noise from molecular impa…
We present an analysis of Brownian force noise from residual gas damping of reference test masses as a fundamental sensitivity limit in small force experiments. The resulting acceleration noise increases significantly when the distance of…
We present a simple analysis of the force noise associated with the mechanical damping of the motion of a test body surrounded by a large volume of rarefied gas. The calculation is performed considering the momentum imparted by inelastic…
The residual gas damping of the test mass (TM) in the free molecular flow regime is studied in the finite open systems for high-precision gravity-related experiments. Through strict derivation, we separate the damping coefficients for two…
We demonstrate how the ineluctable presence of thermal noise alters the measurement of forces acting on microscopic and nanoscopic objects. We quantify this effect exemplarily for a Brownian particle near a wall subjected to gravitational…
In contrast with a gas at thermodynamic equilibrium, the mean force exerted on a wall by a gas of active particles usually depends on the confining potential, thereby preventing a proper definition of mechanical pressure. In this paper, we…
A torsion pendulum allows ground-based investigation of the purity of free-fall for the LISA test masses inside their capacitive position sensor. This paper presents recent improvements in our torsion pendulum facility that have both…
An analysis is given of thermoelastic noise (thermal noise due to thermoelastic dissipation) in finite sized test masses of laser interferometer gravitational-wave detectors. Finite-size effects increase the thermoelastic noise by a modest…
This paper discusses force noise in LISA and LISA Pathfinder arising from the interaction of patch potentials on the test mass and surrounding electrode housing surfaces with their own temporal fluctuations. We aim to estimate the…
We report on electrostatic measurements made on board the European Space Agency mission LISA Pathfinder. Detailed measurements of the charge-induced electrostatic forces exerted on free-falling test masses (TMs) inside the capacitive…
Any gravitating mass traversing a relatively sparse gas experiences a retarding force created by its disturbance of the surrounding medium. In a previous contribution (Lee & Stahler 2011), we determined this dynamical friction force when…
A four mass torsion pendulum facility for testing of the LISA GRS is under development in Trento. With a LISA-like test mass suspended off-axis with respect to the pendulum fiber, the facility allows for a direct measurement of surface…
LISA Pathfinder was a mission designed to test key technologies required for gravitational wave detection in space. Magnetically driven forces play a key role in the instrument sensitivity in the low-frequency regime, which corresponds to…
The low frequency sensitivity of space-borne gravitational wave observatories will depend critically on the geodetic purity of the trajectories of orbiting test masses. Fluctuations in the temperature difference across the enclosure…
We study the instabilities of a harmonic oscillator subject to additive and dichotomous multiplicative noise, focussing on the dependance of the instability threshold on the mass. For multiplicative noise in the damping, the instability…
We present an experimental analysis of force noise caused by stray electrostatic fields acting on a charged test mass inside a conducting enclosure, a key problem for precise gravitational experiments. Measurement of the average field that…
The low-frequency resolution of space-based gravitational wave observatories such as LISA (Laser Interferometry Space Antenna) hinges on the orbital purity of a free-falling reference test mass inside a satellite shield. We present here a…
The thermal noise is expected to be one of the main limiting factors on the sensitivity of interferometric gravitational-wave detectors like LIGO and VIRGO. Thermal fluctuations of internal modes of the interferometer's test masses and of…
We have built a highly sensitive torsion balance to investigate small forces between closely spaced gold coated surfaces. Such forces will occur between the LISA proof mass and its housing. These forces are not well understood and…
Thermal modeling of the LISA gravitational reference sensor (GRS) includes such effects as outgassing from the proof mass and its housing and the radiometer effect. Experimental data in conditions emulating the LISA GRS are required to…
Observation of the Brownian motion of a small probe interacting with its environment is one of the main strategies to characterize soft matter. Essentially two counteracting forces govern the motion of the Brownian particle. First, the…