Tilt-to-length coupling in LISA Pathfinder: a data analysis
Abstract
We present a study of the tilt-to-length coupling noise during the LISA Pathfinder mission and how it depended on the system's alignment. Tilt-to-length coupling noise is the unwanted coupling of angular and lateral spacecraft or test mass motion into the primary interferometric displacement readout. It was one of the major noise sources in the LISA Pathfinder mission and is likewise expected to be a primary noise source in LISA. We demonstrate here that a recently derived and published analytical model describes the dependency of the LISA Pathfinder tilt-to-length coupling noise on the alignment of the two freely falling test masses. This was verified with the data taken before and after the realignments performed in March (engineering days) and June 2016, and during a two-day experiment in February 2017 (long cross-talk experiment). The latter was performed with the explicit goal of testing the tilt-to-length coupling noise dependency on the test mass alignment. Using the analytical model, we show that all realignments performed during the mission were only partially successful and explain the reasons why. In addition to the analytical model, we computed another physical tilt-to-length coupling model via a minimising routine making use of the long cross-talk experiment data. A similar approach could prove useful for the LISA mission.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2308.02398,
title = {Tilt-to-length coupling in LISA Pathfinder: a data analysis},
author = {M Armano and H Audley and J Baird and P Binetruy and M Born and D Bortoluzzi and E Castelli and A Cavalleri and A Cesarini and A M Cruise and K Danzmann and M de Deus Silva and I Diepholz and G Dixon and R Dolesi and L Ferraioli and V Ferroni and E D Fitzsimons and M Freschi and L Gesa and D Giardini and F Gibert and R Giusteri and C Grimani and J Grzymisch and I Harrison and M-S Hartig and G Heinzel and M Hewitson and D Hollington and D Hoyland and M Hueller and H Inchauspé and O Jennrich and P Jetzer and U Johann and B Johlander and N Karnesis and B Kaune and C J Killow and N Korsakova and J A Lobo and J P López-Zaragoza and R Maarschalkerweerd and D Mance and V Martín and L Martin-Polo and F Martin-Porqueras and J Martino and P W McNamara and J Mendes and L Mendes and N Meshksar and M Nofrarias and S Paczkowski and M Perreur-Lloyd and A Petiteau and E Plagnol and J Ramos-Castro and J Reiche and F Rivas and D I Robertson and G Russano and J Sanjuan and J Slutsky and C F Sopuerta and T Sumner and L Tevlin and D Texier and J I Thorpe and D Vetrugno and S Vitale and G Wanner and H Ward and P J Wass and W J Weber and L Wissel and A Wittchen and P Zweifel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.02398},
year = {2023}
}