PIRES , Sandrine

The MICROSCOPE space mission, launched on April 25, 2016, aims to test the weak equivalence principle (WEP) with a 10^−15 precision. Reaching this performance requires an accurate and robust data analysis method, especially since the possible WEP violation signal will be dominated by a strongly colored noise. An important complication is...

MICROSCOPE's space test of the weak equivalence principle (WEP) is based on the minute measurement of the difference of accelerations experienced by two test masses as they orbit the Earth. A detection of a violation of the WEP would appear at a well-known frequency f$_{EP}$ depending on the satellite's orbital and spinning frequencies....

After performing highly sensitive acceleration measurements during two years of drag-free flight around the Earth, MICROSCOPE provided the best constraint on the weak equivalence principle (WEP) to date. Beside being a technological challenge, this experiment required a specialised data analysis pipeline to look for a potential small signal...