Experimental Design for the LATOR Mission

TL;DR

The LATOR mission aims to measure solar gravitational effects with unprecedented precision using laser interferometry, testing general relativity and exploring potential new physics beyond current theories.

Contribution

This paper presents the experimental design of the LATOR mission, introducing innovative optical techniques for high-precision tests of gravity.

Findings

Design of a laser-based optical interferometry system for gravity measurement

Expected measurement accuracy of the post-Newtonian parameter 

Potential to detect deviations from general relativity or new interactions

Abstract

This paper discusses experimental design for the Laser Astrometric Test Of Relativity (LATOR) mission. LATOR is designed to reach unprecedented accuracy of 1 part in 10^8 in measuring the curvature of the solar gravitational field as given by the value of the key Eddington post-Newtonian parameter \gamma. This mission will demonstrate the accuracy needed to measure effects of the next post-Newtonian order (~G^2) of light deflection resulting from gravity's intrinsic non-linearity. LATOR will provide the first precise measurement of the solar quadrupole moment parameter, J2, and will improve determination of a variety of relativistic effects including Lense-Thirring precession. The mission will benefit from the recent progress in the optical communication technologies -- the immediate and natural step above the standard radio-metric techniques. The key element of LATOR is a geometric redundancy provided by the laser ranging and long-baseline optical interferometry. We discuss the mission and optical designs, as well as the expected performance of this proposed mission. LATOR will lead to very robust advances in the tests of Fundamental physics: this mission could discover a violation or extension of general relativity, or reveal the presence of an additional long range interaction in the physical law. There are no analogs to the LATOR experiment; it is unique and is a natural culmination of solar system gravity experiments.