Performance of a radiatively cooled system for quantum optomechanical experiments in space

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a radiatively cooled system's ability to achieve sub-20K temperatures for quantum optomechanical experiments in space, analyzing heat transfer, thermal oscillations, and design improvements.

Contribution

It provides a detailed heat-transfer and thermal analysis of a radiatively cooled instrument for space-based quantum experiments, proposing design enhancements for lower temperatures.

Findings

Thermal analysis shows feasible cooling below 20K in space environments.

Design modifications like mirror-based imaging and extended heat shields improve cooling performance.

Analysis of thermal oscillations informs stability considerations for quantum experiments.

Abstract

The performance of a radiatively cooled instrument is investigated in the context of optomechanical quantum experiments, where the environment of a macroscopic particle in a quantum-superposition has to be cooled to less than 20\,K in deep space. A heat-transfer analysis between the components of the instrument as well as a transfer-function analysis on thermal oscillations induced by the spacecraft interior and by dissipative sources is performed. The thermal behaviour of the instrument in an orbit around a Lagrangian point and in a highly elliptical Earth orbit is discussed. Finally, we investigate further possible design improvements aiming at lower temperatures of the environment of the macroscopic particle. These include a mirror-based design of the imaging system on the optical bench and the extension of the heat shields.