Numerical simulation of time delay interferometry for new LISA, TAIJI and other LISA-like missions

TL;DR

This paper numerically simulates time delay interferometry for new LISA, TAIJI, and other LISA-like missions, demonstrating that second-generation TDI can meet sensitivity requirements across various arm lengths, with some relaxation needed for first-generation configurations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive numerical analysis of TDI performance for multiple LISA-like missions, including new configurations and arm lengths, guiding laser stability requirements.

Findings

Second-generation TDI differences are below sensitivity limits for all considered missions.

First-generation TDI configurations require relaxation of requirements by 3 to 30 times.

X+Y+Z TDI configuration offers good path difference cancellation and null detection capability.

Abstract

The success of LISA Pathfinder in demonstrating the LISA drag-free requirement paved the road of using space missions for detecting low-frequency and middle-frequency GWs. The new LISA GW mission proposes to use arm length of 2.5 Gm (1 Gm = 106 km). The TAIJI GW mission proposes to use arm length of 3 Gm. In order to attain the requisite sensitivity, laser frequency noise must be suppressed to below the secondary noises such as the optical path noise, acceleration noise etc. In previous papers, we have performed the numerical simulation of the time delay interferometry (TDI) for original LISA, ASTROD-GW and eLISA together with a LISA-type mission with a nominal arm length of 2 Gm using the CGC 2.7/CGC2.7.1 ephemeris framework. In this paper, we follow the same procedure to simulate the time delay interferometry numerically for the new LISA mission and the TAIJI mission together with LISA-like missions of arm length 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 Gm. The resulting optical path differences of the second-generation TDI calculated for new LISA, TAIJI, and LISA-like missions or arm length 1, 2, 4, 5 & 6 Gm are well below their respective limits which the laser frequency noise is required to be suppressed. However, for of the first generation X, Y, and Z TDI configurations, the original requirements need to be relaxed by 3 to 30 fold to be satisfied. For the new LISA and TAIJI, about one order of magnitude relaxation would be good and recommended; this could be borne on the laser stability requirement in view of recent progress in laser stability. Compared with X, Y and Z, the X+Y+Z configuration does have a good cancellation of path length differences and could serve as a null string detection check. We compile and compare the resulting differences of various TDI configurations due to the different arm lengths for various LISA-like mission proposals and for the ASTROD-GW mission proposal.