General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, abstract
gr-qc/0509021

From: Andreas Rathke [view email]

Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2005 12:45:40 GMT (259kb)

Pioneer anomaly: What can we learn from LISA?

Authors: Denis Defrere, Andreas Rathke

Comments: 19 pages, 4 figures. Talk given by D. Defrere at the conference "Lasers, Clocks, and Drag-Free", ZARM, Bremen, Germany, 30 May - 1 June 2005

The Doppler tracking data from two deep-space spacecraft, Pioneer 10 and 11, show an anomalous blueshift, which has been dubbed the "Pioneer anomaly". The effect is most commonly interpreted as a real deceleration of the spacecraft - an interpretation that faces serious challenges from planetary ephemerides. The Pioneer anomaly could as well indicate an unknown effect on the radio signal itself. Several authors have made suggestions how such a blueshift could be related to cosmology. We consider this interpretation of the Pioneer anomaly and study the impact of an anomalous blueshift on the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a planned joint ESA-NASA mission aiming at the detection of gravitational waves. The relative frequency shift (proportional to the light travel time) for the LISA arm length is estimated to 10E-16, which is much bigger than the expected amplitude of gravitational waves. The anomalous blueshift enters the LISA signal in two ways, as a small term folded with the gravitational wave signal, and as larger term at low frequencies. A detail analysis shows that both contributions remain undetectable and do not impair the gravitational-wave detection.

This suggests that the Pioneer anomaly will have to be tested in the outer Solar system regardless if the effect is caused by an anomalous blueshift or by a real force.

http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0509021