Enhanced frequency noise suppression for LISA by combining cavity and arm locking control systems

Abstract

This paper presents a novel method for laser frequency stabilization in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission by locking a laser to two stable length references-the arms of the interferometer and an on-board optical cavity. The two references are digitally fused using carefully designed control systems, attempting minimal or no changes to the baseline LISA mission hardware. The interferometer arm(s) provides the most stable reference available in the LISA science band (0.1 mHz-1 Hz), while the cavity sensor's wideband and linear readout enables additional control system gain below and above the LISA band. The main technical issue with this dual sensor approach is the undesirable slow laser frequency pulling which couples into the control system with the imperfect knowledge of the Doppler shift of the light due to relative spacecraft motion along the LISA arm. This paper outlines requirements on the Doppler shift knowledge to maintain the cavity well within the resonance when activating the fused control system. Two Doppler shift estimation methods are presented that use the already on-board measurements, the inter-spacecraft interferometer link (the main science measurement), and the absolute inter-spacecraft laser ranging system. Both methods reach the required precision after a few thousand seconds of measurement integration. The paper demonstrates an approach to initialize and engage the proposed laser stabilization system, starting from free-running laser and ending with the dual sensor frequency control system. The results show that the technique lowers the residual laser frequency noise in the LISA science band by over 3 orders of magnitude: from 30 Hz/Hz to as low as 7 mHz/Hz, potentially allowing the requirements on Time Delay Interferometry (TDI) to be relaxed - possibly to the point where first-generation TDI may be sufficient.