Seismic background mitigation with the Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how the placement of seismic stations on the Moon can significantly reduce seismic noise in lunar gravitational-wave detectors, enhancing their sensitivity.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analytical framework for seismic noise mitigation using two optimally placed seismic stations on the Moon.

Findings

Optimal station placement can reduce seismic noise ASD by a factor of 2.3 at 0.3 Hz.

Seismic noise mitigation depends critically on the distance between stations relative to seismic correlation length.

Seismic noise ASD exhibits oscillatory features due to Bessel-function correlation structure.

Abstract

Lunar gravitational-wave (GW) detectors relying on the measurement of the response of the Moon to GWs are susceptible to a seismic background, which might pose a fundamental sensitivity limitation. The Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna (LGWA) was conceived as an array of accelerometers with the idea that data can be processed to distinguish between a GW signal and the seismic background. As a result, the seismic noise of the GW measurement would be mitigated. However, so far, no quantitative assessment of the mitigation of the seismic background has been provided. In this article, we derive the analytical expressions for the optimal squared signal-to-noise ratio considering two seismic stations in an isotropic, random, Gaussian seismic field. Our numerical analysis reveals that the capacity to mitigate the seismic noise critically depends on the distance between the two stations relative to the seismic-correlation length. We demonstrate that optimal placement of the two stations can yield significant improvements in the equivalent seismic noise amplitude spectrum density (ASD), approximately a factor of 2.3 at 0.3 Hz, compared to the measurement with a single station. The equivalent ASD of the seismic noise also exhibits distinct oscillatory and mitigation features arising from the Bessel-function structure of the noise correlation.