Projects per year
Abstract
Passive cooling of scientific instruments via thermal radiation to deep space offers many advantages over active cooling in terms of mission cost, lifetime and the achievable quality of vacuum and microgravity. Motivated by the mission proposal MAQRO to test, the foundations of quantum physics harnessing a deep-space environment, we investigate the performance of a radiatively cooled instrument, where the environment of a test particle in a quantum superposition has to be cooled to less than 20 K. We perform a heat-transfer analysis between the instrument components and a transfer-function analysis on thermal oscillations induced by the spacecraft interior and dissipative sources. The thermal behavior of the instrument is discussed for an orbit around a Lagrangian point and for a highly elliptical Earth orbit. Finally, we investigate possible design improvements. These include a mirror-based design of the imaging system on the optical bench (OB) and an extension of the heat shields.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 689-699 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | Applied Thermal Engineering |
Volume | 107 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 25 Aug 2016 |
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 103025 Quantum mechanics
- 103004 Astrophysics
Keywords
- Cryogenic instrument
- Space missions
- Optomechanics
- System engineering
- Quantum physics
- MAQRO
- TITANIUM-ALLOYS
- MISSION
- CONDUCTIVITIES
- DECOHERENCE
- GAIA
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QLev4G: Quantum control of levitated massive mechanical systems: a new approach for gravitational quantum physics
Aspelmeyer, M. & Paulovics, V.
1/06/15 → 31/05/20
Project: Research funding
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MAQROsteps: Increase the TRLs of key technologies for testing the foundations of physics with macroscopic quantum resonators
Kaltenbaek, R. & Paulovics, V.
1/08/13 → 31/07/15
Project: Research funding
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ULE-Cavity-Access: Stable, fibre-coupled ultra-low-expansion cavities with good optical access for cryogenic experiments in space
Kaltenbaek, R. & Paulovics, V.
1/04/16 → 15/10/17
Project: Research funding