LISA R&D
Collaboration:
National Responsible: S. Vitale (Trento)
Laboratory: Space mission
1. Goal of the experiment
LISA, Laser Interferometer Space Antenna for the detection of Gravitational waves, is a project aimed at placing in a heliocentric orbit, a constellation of three spacecraft acting as agravitational wave antenna for signals in the frequency range between 0.1 mHz and 0.1 Hz.
2.
Activities in 2001
After a study phase to assess the most relevant source of noise, we have designed and built an inertial sensor with 100 µm precision machining, for overall functionality testing of the design and of the electronics.
We have performed a few tests on the fabrication technology of the electrode housing for a 3 µm precision machined prototype. The technology uses a composite Mo Ceramic construction. The results have been satisfactory. As a consequence we have now designed a prototype based on this technology which is currently under fabrication.
We have designed a torsion pendulum test bench including a vacuum chamber and a micro-positioning system for the test-mass. The pendulum is now under assemblage.
We have designed and built the readout electronics including an oscillator, a Blumlein bridge, a preamplifier and a PSD.
We have performed a full noise calculation for the readout electronics. Preliminary tests agree quantitatively with the calculation. We have also a preliminary design of a low frequency suspension loop, a key feature for LISA, with a numerical simulation of its performance.
Milestones 2002
Final design of the inertial sensor for the demonstration mission SMART2 | 30-06-2002 |
Realization of the Engineering Model of the sensor | 31-12-2002 |
Validation and test of the parasitic forces | 31-12-2002 |
Participation to the architecture of the flight test of the sensor for the SMART2 mission | 31-12-2002 |
3. INFN contribution to the experiment in terms of manpower and financial support
Manpower: the group is composed of 5 researchers associated to INFN.
Budget for the Year 2002: 26.5 kEuro.
4. Number of Publications in refereed journals: 2
5. Conference talks:
6. Number of undergraduate and doctoral thesis in the experiment
1 graduate student
7. Leadership roles and primary responsibilities in the experiment
8. Innovative instruments
Development of a gravitational sensor for LISA.
Development of a torsion pendulum based test bench for parasitic forces.
9. Competing experiments
There are no competing experiments. There is a general consensus that ground based experiments that search for waves in the audio band are complementary to LISA as they look for a rather different kind of gravitational wave sources.
10. International committees that have reviewed the experiment.
LISA has been chosen by ESA's SPC has a cornerstone mission in fundamental physics. Has been confirmed in this status by many external and internal reviews. LISA has been endorsed by a series of panels of the NSF and NASA in the USA.