Optical frequency comb-based local oscillator phase noise cancellation in time-delay-interferometer for gravitational wave detection

Time-delay-interferometer (TDI) is well established as an effective technique to mitigate laser phase noises in laser interferometer gravitational wave detection (GWD). Just as important in the TDI scheme is the ability to suppress the rf local oscillator noise (LO) in the optical heterodyne measurements. We show that LO noises can be effectively and elegantly cancelled by employing optical frequency combs in which the rf signal phases are coherent with the optical phases. In addition, the deployment of optical combs eliminates the need for separate ultra-stable oscillators. This is a simpler and more reliable approach than the modulation scheme, and it can be applied to the most generalized TDI combinations. In this proposed effort, we will investigate the application of optical combs in TDI and demonstrate in a test bed simultaneous noise cancellations in both ranging lasers and rf LOs in a generalized TDI configuration.

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