GG high accuracy test of the equivalence principle: state of the art, laboratory prototype and new insights (original) (raw)

2010

Abstract

The GG ("Galileo Galilei") satellite experiment aims to test the Equivalence Principle (EP) to 10-17 , an extremely ambitious goal (due to improve current best results by 4 orders of magnitude) that should tell us in a clear cut way whether we are in the presence of a new long-range physical interaction (violation) or not (confirmation). Either way, it would be a major result. An end-to-end space experiment simulator was constructed at TAS-I based on GOCE simulator and ASI (Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) funding. The resulting error budget is consistent with the mission goal, which can be realized in 4 years from the start of Phase B. In the lab, a full scale prototype has provided a 25 days continuous run with a sensitivity -in the field of the Sun, hence at diurnal frequency- of a few nanometers in the relative displacement of the proof masses, to be compared with the picometer level required in space for GG to achieve its goal. A passive suspended prototype is under completion in order to reduce ground platform noise by means of an appropriate cardanic suspension which has now been proved to be able to reduce diurnal terrain noise by a factor 104 . The crucial issue of thermal noise has been recently revisited and a major new insight has come thanks to M. Shao (JPL): in GG, by up-converting the frequency of an EP violation signal in the field of the Earth from its (low) orbital frequency of 1.7 · 10-4 Hz to the (high) rotation/modulation frequency of 1Hz -the highest ever in EP experiments- proof mass thermal noise is reduced by orders of magnitude, as the ratio of these frequencies squared. Instead, cooling the experiment to superfluid He temperature would only reduce thermal noise by a factor 10. This is a feature unique to GG. It now appears that, if equipped with an intrinsic differential transducer such as a SIM like laser gauge, GG may indeed aim to an EP test to 10-18 . The end-to-end GG simulator built at TAS-I in 2009 during GG Phase A-2 study is the crucial tool that allows this analysis to be performed in a reliable way and in a short time, at the very beginning of GG Phase B Study should ASI approve it.

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