Experimental end-to-end demonstration of intersatellite absolute ranging for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

authored by: Kohei Yamamoto, Iouri Bykov, Jan Niklas Reinhardt, Christoph Bode, Pascal Grafe, Martin Staab, Narjiss Messied, Myles Clark, Germán Fernández Barranco, Thomas S. Schwarze, Olaf Hartwig, Juan José Esteban Delgado, Gerhard Heinzel
Abstract: The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a gravitational wave detector in space. It relies on a postprocessing technique named time-delay interferometry to suppress the overwhelming laser frequency noise by several orders of magnitude. This algorithm requires intersatellite-ranging monitors to provide information on spacecraft separations. To fulfill this requirement, we use on-ground observatories, optical sideband-sideband beatnotes, pseudorandom noise ranging (PRNR), and time-delay interferometric ranging (TDIR). This article reports on the experimental end-to-end demonstration of a hexagonal optical testbed used to extract absolute ranges via the optical sidebands, PRNR, and TDIR. These were applied for clock synchronization of optical beatnote signals sampled at independent phasemeters. We set up two possible PRNR processing schemes: Scheme 1 extracts pseudoranges from PRNR via a calibration relying on TDIR; Scheme 2 synchronizes all beatnote signals without TDIR calibration. The schemes rely on newly implemented monitors of local-PRNR biases. After the necessary PRNR treatments (unwrapping, ambiguity resolution, bias correction, in-band jitter reduction, and/or calibration), Schemes 1 and 2 achieved ranging accuracies of 2.0-8.1 cm and 5.8-41.1 cm, respectively, below the classical 1-m mark with margins.
Organisation(s): Institute of Gravitation Physics
PhoenixD: Photonics, Optics, and Engineering - Innovation Across Disciplines
External Organisation(s): Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
LNE-SYRTE - Observatoire de Paris
University of Florida
Type: Article
Journal: Physical review applied
Volume: 22
ISSN: 2331-7019
Publication date: 07.11.2024
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: General Physics and Astronomy
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevapplied.22.054020 (Access: Open)

BibTeX

@article{6e9a4ccf5a07438c8f092e03196029f7,
title = "Experimental end-to-end demonstration of intersatellite absolute ranging for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna",
abstract = "The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a gravitational wave detector in space. It relies on a postprocessing technique named time-delay interferometry to suppress the overwhelming laser frequency noise by several orders of magnitude. This algorithm requires intersatellite-ranging monitors to provide information on spacecraft separations. To fulfill this requirement, we use on-ground observatories, optical sideband-sideband beatnotes, pseudorandom noise ranging (PRNR), and time-delay interferometric ranging (TDIR). This article reports on the experimental end-to-end demonstration of a hexagonal optical testbed used to extract absolute ranges via the optical sidebands, PRNR, and TDIR. These were applied for clock synchronization of optical beatnote signals sampled at independent phasemeters. We set up two possible PRNR processing schemes: Scheme 1 extracts pseudoranges from PRNR via a calibration relying on TDIR; Scheme 2 synchronizes all beatnote signals without TDIR calibration. The schemes rely on newly implemented monitors of local-PRNR biases. After the necessary PRNR treatments (unwrapping, ambiguity resolution, bias correction, in-band jitter reduction, and/or calibration), Schemes 1 and 2 achieved ranging accuracies of 2.0-8.1 cm and 5.8-41.1 cm, respectively, below the classical 1-m mark with margins.",
author = "Kohei Yamamoto and Iouri Bykov and Reinhardt, {Jan Niklas} and Christoph Bode and Pascal Grafe and Martin Staab and Narjiss Messied and Myles Clark and Barranco, {Germ{\'a}n Fern{\'a}ndez} and Schwarze, {Thomas S.} and Olaf Hartwig and Delgado, {Juan Jos{\'e} Esteban} and Gerhard Heinzel",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2024 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the {"}https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/{"}Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Open access publication funded by Max Planck Society.",
year = "2024",
month = nov,
day = "7",
doi = "10.1103/physrevapplied.22.054020",
language = "English",
volume = "22",
journal = "Physical review applied",
issn = "2331-7019",
publisher = "American Physical Society",
number = "5",
}