Relativistic Light Sails

Abstract

One proposed method for spacecraft to reach nearby stars is by accelerating sails using either solar radiation pressure or directed energy. This idea constitutes the thesis behind the Breakthrough Starshot project, which aims to accelerate a gram-mass spacecraft up to one-fifth the speed of light towards Proxima Centauri. For such a case, the combination of the sail's low mass and relativistic velocity render previous treatments formally incorrect, including that of Einstein himself in his seminal 1905 paper introducing special relativity. To address this, we present formulae for a sail's acceleration, first in response to a single photon and then extended to an ensemble. We show how the sail's motion in response to an ensemble of incident photons is equivalent to that of a single photon of energy equal to that of the ensemble. We use this 'principle of ensemble equivalence' for both perfect and imperfect mirrors, enabling a simple analytic prediction of the sail's velocity curve. Using our results and adopting putative parameters for Starshot, we estimate that previous relativistic treatments underestimate the spacecraft's terminal velocity by ~50m/s for the same incident energy, sufficient to miss a target by several Earth radii. Additionally, we use a simple model to predict the sail's temperature and diffraction beam losses during the laser firing period, allowing us to estimate that for firing times of a few minutes and operating temperatures below 300C (573K), Starshot will require a sail of which absorbs less than 1 in 260,000 photons.