Informal Workshop

Pisa (Italy) 10-12 February 2010

"Galileo Galilei" (GG) and GGG lab prototype: state of the art and new possibilities

Motivation

The GG (“Galileo Galilei”) satellite experiment aims to test the Equivalence Principle to 10-17, an extremely ambitious goal (due to improve current best results by 4 orders of magnitude) that should tell us in a clear cut way whether we are in the presence of a new long-range physical interaction (violation) or not (confirmation). Either way, it would be a major result. This informal workshop is motivated by the possibility - first proposed by Slava Turyshev - that a laser gauge of the type developed at JPL for SIM (Space Interferometry Mission) may be used in GG to measure the relative displacements of the test masses, instead of the capacitance transducer currently planned for GG and tested in the GGG laboratory prototype. Following an email discussion, the best understanding of GG/GGG on one side and of SIM laser gauges on the other are brought together at this meeting to establish the viability of the proposal and set up ways of collaboration.

Program

The workshop has led to very important results. Read here:
"Workshop summary notes"

Participants

Talks

GGG best results: Relevance to GG and evidence for passive reduction
of low frequency terrain tilts (A. Nobili, Univ. Pisa & INFN)

Capacitance sensing electronics: state of the art worldwide, current status in GGG and prospects for improvement (R. Pegna, INFN)

SIM-like laser gauge and adaptation to GG (M. Shao, JPL)

Overview of the GG space experiment current design (A. Nobili, Univ. Pisa & INFN)

Seminar given by Michael Shao (JPL) at INFN, Sezione di Pisa:
"Laser metrology on SIM (Space Interferometry Mission): Accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio"

The GG satellite mission: synthesis of the 2009 ASI Phase A2 study (A. Anselmi TAS-I & A. Sposito, ASI)

GG error budget from the end-to-end simulator developed at TAS-I (G. Catastini, TAS-I)

Optical metrology applications at TAS-I (Turin) in support of gravity and fundamental physics (S. Cesare, TAS-I)

The new space science DLR Institute in Bremen and Fundamental Physics (H. Dittus, DLR, Germany)