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LISA pathfinder appreciably constrains collapse models

Slagmolen, B. J. J.; Helou, Bassam; McClelland, David E. +1 more

Spontaneous collapse models are phenomological theories formulated to address major difficulties in macroscopic quantum mechanics. We place significant bounds on the parameters of the leading collapse models, the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model, and the Diosi-Penrose (DP) model, by using LISA Pathfinder's measurement, at a record a…

Capacitive sensing of test mass motion with nanometer precision over millimeter-wide sensing gaps for space-borne gravitational reference sensors

Mendes, L.; Madden, S.; Russano, G. +100 more

We report on the performance of the capacitive gap-sensing system of the Gravitational Reference Sensor on board the LISA Pathfinder spacecraft. From in-flight measurements, the system has demonstrated a performance, down to 1 mHz, that is ranging between 0.7 and 1.8 aF Hz^{-1 /2} . That translates into a sensing noise of the test mass mot…