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Original version
Wissel, L.: LISA Pathfinder: Understanding DWS noise performance for the LISA mission. In: Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCONF) 840 (2017), 012044. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/840/1/012044
ESA's L3 Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission contains a mechanism to compensate for out-of-plane angles between the received and emitted beams of the three satellites. Depending on the configuration of this Point-Ahead Angle Mechanism (PAAM) it is expected to contribute readout noise through Differential Wavefront Sensing (DWS). This was investigated with LISA Pathfinder (LPF) through a dedicated investigation. One of the two free-falling test masses was rotated via the on-board electrostatic actuators while the resulting angular noise in the differential interferometer between the two test masses was measured. For angles between -250 μrad to 250 μrad and corresponding contrast in the range of 59.4 % to 97.9 % an increased spectral density was found. The differential displacement noise remains almost unchanged for these misalignments.