Abstract

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a planned spaceborne gravitational wave detector that will measure gravitational waves at millihertz frequencies.¹ Being basically a giant Michel- son interferometer with not necessarily equally spaced arm length, LISA requires an extremely stable laser source. USA's lasers will be frequency- stabilised on optical resonators at room temperature using the Pound-Drever-Hall reflection technique.² The low-frequency noise of the lasers is dominated by thermal fluctuations of the reference cavities,³ which, in the heliocentric orbit of the LISA mission, mainly stem from fluctuations in the solar intensity.

© 2002 Optical Society of America