Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2507.19267

Modulation-assisted time-delay interferometric ranging for LISA

Jean-Baptiste Bayle·Martin Staab·Samuel P. Francis·Emily Rose Rees·Robert Spero·Gerhard Heinzel
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Laser Interferometer Space Antenna LISA represents the next frontier in gravitationalwave GW astronomy targeting the detection of millihertz gravitational signals Central to LISAs operation is the nanosecondprecision estimation of the light travel times LTTs between its constituent spacecraft Precise LTT estimates are critical for suppressing dominant laser noise with timedelay interferometry TDI and ensuring the required sensitivity to GW signals The baseline method is to modulate a pseudorandom noise PRN code on the laser beams exchanged between the spacecraft Timedelay interferometric ranging TDIR was proposed as a simpler alternative LTT estimation method TDIR LTT estimates are chosen to minimize the TDI residual noise over the full LISA frequency band TDIR can be used in case of PRN failure or to calibrate the biases of the PRN method In this study we introduce modulationassisted TDIR MATDIR an enhanced variant of TDIR that significantly improves LTT estimation precision and resilience MATDIR achieves this by modulating the laser phase at specific frequencies close to 1Hz thereby artificially elevating the laser phase content relative to secondary unsuppressed noises This modulation strategy not only enhances the signaltonoise ratio for TDIR but also mitigates the impact of GW signals and instrumental artifacts enabling more reliable LTT estimates with reduced integration times We develop the theoretical framework of MATDIR incorporating the full constellation of three spacecraft laser locking and multiple Michelson TDI combinations Analytical predictions confirmed by numerical simulations indicate that MATDIR can achieve LTT estimates comparable to the 1mrms at fs 4 Hz of the PRNbased baseline method We therefore suggest that the possibility to modulate lasers is added to the laser system requirements of LISA

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.IM

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Jean-Baptiste Bayle, Martin Staab, Samuel P. Francis, Emily Rose Rees, Robert Spero, Gerhard Heinzel. 2025-07-25. Modulation-assisted time-delay interferometric ranging for LISA. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382%2Fadecd3

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗