Seismometer for strange quark nugget search and for lunar science studies

Because the Moon is much quieter seismically than the Earth, science to be performed on the Moon using seismology is currently limited by the best available seismometer. We describe the development of a lunar seismometer with sensitivity at least 100 times higher than current state of the art. Analysis of the fundamental noise of this seismometer shows that at frequency below ~1 Hz the noise will be dominated by Brownian motion of the test mass. Above ~1 Hz, it will be dominated by thermal noise in the electronic readout. The electronic noise corresponds to ~10−13 m Hz−1/2. A way to reduce the Brownian motion noise of the test mass using electrostatic force is also discussed.