http://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08287
Within its Voyage 2050 planning cycle, the European Space Agency (ESA) is considering long-term large class science mission themes. Gravitational-wave astronomy is among the topics under study. This paper presents “LISAmax”, a gravitational-wave interferometer concept consisting of three spacecraft located close to the Sun-Earth libration points L3, L4 and L5, forming a triangular constellation with an arm length of 259 million kilometers (to be compared to LISA’s 2.5 million kilometer arms). This is the largest triangular formation that can be reached from Earth without a major leap in mission complexity and cost. The sensitivity curve of such a detector is at least two orders of magnitude lower in amplitude than that of LISA. Depending on the choice of other instrument parameters, this makes the detector sensitive to gravitational waves in the micro-Hertz range and opens a new window for gravitational-wave astronomy, not covered by any other planned detector concept. We analyze in detail the constellation stability for a 10-year mission in the full numerical model and compute the orbit transfers using a European launcher and chemical propulsion. The payload design parameters are assessed, and the expected sensitivity curve is compared with a number of potential gravitational-wave sources. No show stoppers are identified at this point of the analysis.
W. Martens, M. Khan and J. Bayle
Tue, 18 Apr 23
45/80
Comments: 18 pages, 11 figures