Effects of interplanetary dust on the LISA drag-free constellation

Author: Cerdonio Massimo   De Marchi Fabrizio   De Pietri Roberto   Jetzer Philippe   Marzari Francesco   Mazzolo Giulio   Ortolan Antonello   Sereno Mauro  

Publisher: Springer Publishing Company

ISSN: 0923-2958

Source: Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical Astronomy, Vol.107, Iss.1-2, 2010-06, pp. : 255-264

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Abstract

The analysis of non-radiative sources of static or time-dependent gravitational fields in the Solar System is crucial to accurately estimate the free-fall orbits of the LISA space mission. In particular, we take into account the gravitational effects of Interplanetary Dust (ID) on the spacecraft trajectories. The perturbing gravitational field has been calculated for some ID density distributions that fit the observed zodiacal light. Then we integrated the Gauss planetary equations to get the deviations from the LISA Keplerian orbits around the Sun. This analysis can be eventually extended to Local Dark Matter (LDM), as gravitational fields are expected to be similar for ID and LDM distributions. Under some strong assumptions on the displacement noise at very low frequency, the Doppler data collected during the whole LISA mission could provide upper limits on ID and LDM densities.