Spurious Acceleration Noise on the LISA Spacecraft due to Solar Activity

TL;DR

This paper models how solar wind particles and fluctuating solar irradiance cause spurious acceleration noise on LISA spacecraft, using satellite data over a solar cycle to estimate their impact.

Contribution

It provides a realistic model of solar activity-induced noise sources affecting LISA, based on comprehensive satellite data analysis.

Findings

Quantifies forces from solar wind and irradiance fluctuations on LISA.

Models the variation of these noise sources over the solar cycle.

Assesses the impact of solar activity on LISA's sensitivity.

Abstract

One source of noise for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will be time-varying changes of the space environment in the form of solar wind particles and photon pressure from fluctuating solar irradiance. The approximate magnitude of these effects can be estimated from the average properties of the solar wind and the solar irradiance. We use data taken by the ACE (Advanced Compton Explorer) satellite and the VIRGO (Variability of solar IRradiance and Gravity Oscillations) instrument on the SOHO satellite over an entire solar cycle to calculate the forces due to solar wind and photon pressure irradiance on the LISA spacecraft. We produce a realistic model of the effects of these environmental noise sources and their variation over the expected course of the LISA mission.