The estimation of far-field wavefront error of tilt-to-length distortion coupling in space-based gravitational wave detection

TL;DR

This paper models far-field wavefront error in space-based gravitational wave detection using Zernike polynomials, revealing how jitter, aperture size, and arm length influence wavefront distortion and error magnitude.

Contribution

It introduces a numerical method to estimate wavefront error considering jitter and aperture effects, highlighting the significance of specific Zernike modes and parameter ranges.

Findings

Wavefront error decreases significantly with reduced jitter.

Certain Zernike modes dominate wavefront error characteristics.

Wavefront error remains nearly constant with increasing arm length.

Abstract

In space-based gravitational wave detection, the estimation of far-field wavefront error of the distorted beam is the precondition for the noise reduction. Zernike polynomials is used to describe the wavefront error of the transmitted distorted beam. The propagation of a laser beam between two telescope apertures is calculated numerically. Far-field wavefront error is estimated with the absolute height of the peak-to-valley phase deviation between distorted Gaussian beam and a reference distortion-free Gaussian beam. The results show the pointing jitter is strongly related to the wavefront error. Furthermore, when jitter decreases 10 times from 100 to 10 nrad, wavefront error reduces for more than an order of magnitude. In the analysis of multi-parameter minimization, the minimum of wavefront error tends to Z[5,3] Zernike in some parameter ranges. Some Zernikes have a strong correlation with wavefront error of the received beam. When the aperture diameter increases at Z[5,3] Zernike, wavefront error is not monotonic and has oscillation. Nevertheless, wavefront error almost remains constant with the arm length increasing from 10$^{-1}$ Mkm to 10$^3$ Mkm. When the arm length decreases for three orders of magnitude from 10$^{-1}$ Mkm to 10$^{-4}$ Mkm, wavefront error has only an order of magnitude increasing. In the range of 10$^{-4}$ Mkm to 10$^3$ Mkm, the lowest limit of the wavefront error is from 0.5 fm to 0.015 fm, at Z[5,3] Zernike and 10 nrad jitter.