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  • Open Access

Seismic background mitigation with the Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna

Han Yan1,2,3,* and Jan Harms3,4

  • *Contact author: yanhanphy@pku.edu.cn, hyan.phy@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083057 – Published 30 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/sgyq-p8tz

Abstract

Lunar gravitational-wave (GW) detectors relying on the measurement of the response of the Moon to GWs are susceptible to a seismic background, which might pose a fundamental sensitivity limitation. The Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna was conceived as an array of accelerometers with the idea that data can be processed to distinguish between a GW signal and the seismic background. As a result, the seismic noise of the GW measurement would be mitigated. However, so far, no quantitative assessment of the mitigation of the seismic background has been provided. In this article, we derive the analytical expressions for the optimal squared signal-to-noise ratio for a two-station array in an isotropic, random, Gaussian seismic field. Our numerical analysis reveals that the capacity to mitigate the seismic noise critically depends on the distance between the two stations relative to the seismic-correlation length. We demonstrate that optimal placement of the two stations can yield significant improvements in the equivalent seismic-noise amplitude spectral density (ASD), approximately a factor of 2.3 at 0.3 Hz, compared to the measurement with a single station in the seismic-noise-dominated limit. The equivalent ASD of the seismic noise also exhibits distinct oscillatory and mitigation features arising from the Bessel-function structure of the noise correlation.

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Phys. Rev. D 114, 083057– Published 30 October, 2026
  • Received 29 April 2026
  • Revised 22 August 2026
  • Accepted 13 October 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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