Implementation of Time-Delay Interferometry for LISA

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the implementation of Time-Delay Interferometry for LISA, demonstrating that a master-slave laser configuration can replicate the interferometric combinations of the one-way method, with similar hardware requirements.

Contribution

It shows that the master-slave laser configuration can effectively replace the one-way method for LISA's interferometry, simplifying hardware design without loss of functionality.

Findings

Master-slave configuration can generate all interferometric combinations of the one-way method.

Hardware requirements for both configurations are essentially identical.

The proposed design simplifies LISA's optical system implementation.

Abstract

We discuss the baseline optical configuration for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, in which the lasers are not free-running, but rather one of them is used as the main frequency reference generator (the {\it master}) and the remaining five as {\it slaves}, these being phase-locked to the master (the {\it master-slave configuration}). Under the condition that the frequency fluctuations due to the optical transponders can be made negligible with respect to the secondary LISA noise sources (mainly proof-mass and shot noises), we show that the entire space of interferometric combinations LISA can generate when operated with six independent lasers (the {\it one-way method}) can also be constructed with the {\it master-slave} system design. The corresponding hardware trade-off analysis for these two optical designs is presented, which indicates that the two sets of systems needed for implementing the {\it one-way method}, and the {\it master-slave configuration}, are essentially identical. Either operational mode could therefore be implemented without major implications on the hardware configuration. We then.......