Current error estimates for LISA spurious accelerations
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LISA acceleration disturbances error budget↗
Engineering topics
Schumaker, B. L.
Publications and source records attributed to Schumaker, B. L..
Apparent brightness of stars and lasers
Foremost among issues affecting the potential use of astrometric techniques to locate and track laser-carrying spacecraft is the apparent brightness of a laser relative to reference stars. Broadband detectors offer improved sensitivity to stars, but not to lasers. The important and fundamental step of calibrating laser and star brightnesses according to detector spectral sensitivity is performed for four representative kinds of broadband detectors, located above and below the atmosphere. Stars are identified according to parameters traditionally used by astronomers: temperature and apparent brightness at visible wavelengths. These are translated into an energy and photon flux for each kind of broadband detector and are then compared with the corresponding flux from a laser. The comparisons are also given as magnitude correction factors. Astrometrists typically characterize the sensitivity of their instruments in terms of the precision with which they can make a relative measurement of position and the minimum brightness needed to achieve that precision. Given this information and the instruments's spectral sensitivity, the calculations described can be used to infer the detectability of a laser and the precision with which it could be located and tracked. Since the limiting brightness quoted for a particular instrument is typically firm to within 4.0 dB, judging a laser's detectability by its visible brightness alone could lead to serious underestimation of the requirements on its effective radiated power. The laser brightness corrections given solve this problem.
Schumaker, B. L.↗
Four-mode squeezing
The four-wave-mixing interactions produced by pumping at two well-separated frequencies can couple four different radiation modes to generate a new kind of squeezed state of light. A dual-frequency homodyne detection scheme is described and is used to observe this type of nonclassical correlation. Initial experimental results in an optical fiber show a noise level 20 percent below the vacuum noise level for the output of the dual-frequency detector, even though the noise at each individual detector remains above the vacuum level.
Schumaker, B. L.↗
New formalism for two-photon quantum optics. I - Quadrature phases and squeezed states. II - Mathematical foundation and compact notation
A new formalism for analyzing two-photon devices, such as parametric amplifiers and phase-conjugate mirrors, is proposed in part I, focusing on the properties and the significance of the quadrature-phase amplitudes and two-mode squeezed states. Time-stationary quasi-probability noise is also detailed for the case of Gaussian noise, and uncertainty principles for the quadrature-phase amplitudes are outlined, as well as some important properties of the two-mode states. Part II establishes a mathematical foundation for the formalism, with introduction of a vector notation for compact representation of two-mode properties. Fundamental unitary operators and special quantum states are also examined with an emphasis on the two-mode squeezed states. The results are applied to a previously studied degenerate limit (epsilon = 0).
Caves, C. M.↗