What this work contributes
Reports free-fall performance across a frequency band and separates low-frequency behavior, residual-gas noise and interferometer readout noise. It is a model for reporting spectral performance instead of one context-free sensitivity number.
Where the evidence stops
This is relative acceleration between protected reference masses in a drag-free spacecraft. Neither its environment nor its sensitivity transfers directly to a laboratory thrust balance.
Keep the conditions with the result
- Measured / modeled quantity
- Relative acceleration-noise amplitude spectral density
- Reported scale
- 5.2 ± 0.1 fm s⁻²/√Hz between 0.7 and 20 mHz.
- Conditions
- LISA Pathfinder in flight; two free-falling reference masses with interferometric readout.
- Evidence context
- A mission-team measurement; independent replication not assessed in this review.
- Design use
- Publish sensitivity versus frequency and identify the limiting disturbance in each band.
- Review access
- NASA abstract, publication date and DOI checked; full article not reviewed.
Original source
M. Armano et al. (LISA Pathfinder Collaboration). Sub-Femto-g Free Fall for Space-Based Gravitational Wave Observatories: LISA Pathfinder Results. Physical Review Letters 116, 231101 (2016).
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.231101
How we use it
This record belongs to Measurement & replication. Its evidence label describes the cited work, not the maturity of a Metric Flight device. Follow the original methods, corrections and conditions before transferring a result to a different geometry or scale.
Editorial note reviewed 19 October 2026. AI assisted research discovery and synthesis. Citation metadata and claims were checked against primary publication or institutional records; full-text access varies. Read the source for the complete method.