Picometer and nanoradian optical heterodyne interferometry for translation and tilt metrology of the LISA gravitational reference sensor

Abstract

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) aims at detecting gravitational waves by referencing heterodyne interferometry to free-flying (inertial) proof masses, located at the corners of a triangle with 5 million kilometers arm length. The position of each proof mass with respect to the associated satellite must be measured with 1 pm Hz−1/2-sensitivity in translation measurement and below 10 nrad Hz−1/2-sensitivity in attitude. In this paper, we present a compact heterodyne interferometer utilizing polarizing optics combined with the method of differential wavefront sensing (DWS) serving as a demonstrator for a complete optical readout system of the proof mass translation and attitude aboard the LISA satellites. Our interferometer is based on a highly symmetric design, where reference and measurement beam have similar optical paths and equal polarization and frequency. Intensity stabilization of the laser radiation, phaselock of the laser frequencies at the fiber outputs and a digital phase measurement based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) are implemented to achieve noise levels below 10 pm Hz−1/2 and 10 nrad Hz−1/2, respectively, for frequencies >10−2 Hz.