Stability of a Light Sail Riding on a Laser Beam

TL;DR

This paper investigates the stability of light sails on laser beams, revealing that traditional designs are unstable and proposing a new spherical shell architecture that achieves passive stability verified through simulations.

Contribution

A novel spherical shell sail design is introduced that passively maintains stability on a laser beam, eliminating the need for active control.

Findings

Conical sails are unstable without active control.

The spherical shell sail achieves passive stability.

Simulations confirm analytical predictions.

Abstract

The stability of a light sail riding on a laser beam is analyzed both analytically and numerically. Conical sails on Gaussian beams, which have been studied in the past, are shown to be unstable without active control or additional mechanical modifications. A new architecture for a passively stable sail-and-beam configuration is proposed. The novel spherical shell design for the sail is capable of "beam riding" without the need for active feedback control. Full three-dimensional ray-tracing simulations are performed to verify our analytical results.