Authors: Paul Worden John Mester
Publish Date: 2009/07/29
Volume: 148, Issue: 1-4, Pages: 489-499
Abstract
STEP the Satellite Test of the Equivalence Principle is intended to test the apparent equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass to 1 part in 1018 Worden et al in Adv Space Res 2561205–1208 2000 This will be an increase of more than five orders of magnitude over groundbased experiments and lunar laser ranging observations Su et al in Phys Rev D 503614–3636 1994 Williams et al in Phys Rev D 536730–6739 1996 Schlamminger et al in Phys Rev Lett 100041101 2008 It is essential to have a comprehensive and consistent model of the possible error sources in an experiment of this nature to be able to understand and set requirements and to evaluate design tradeoffs In the following pages we describe existing software for such an error model and the application of this software to the STEP experiment In particular we address several issues including charge and patch effect forces where our understanding has improved since the launch of GPB owing to the availability of GPB data and preliminary analysis results Everitt et al in Space Sci Rev 2009 this issue Silbergleit et al in Space Sci Rev 2009 this issue Keiser et al in Space Sci Rev 2009 this issue Heifetz et al in Space Sci Rev 2009 this issue Muhlfelder et al in Space Sci Rev 2009 this issue
Keywords: