Mission Design for the TAIJI misson and Structure Formation in Early Universe

TL;DR

This paper discusses the design and feasibility of the TAIJI space mission for gravitational wave detection, aiming to explore early universe structure formation and black hole evolution.

Contribution

It presents a mission design alternative to (e)LISA, optimized for detecting high redshift black holes and early universe phenomena, and adopted as the TAIJI baseline.

Findings

Designed mission parameters optimize detection of high redshift black holes

Feasibility study compares multiple mission options for space-based gravitational wave detection

TAIJI mission design balances scientific goals with technological constraints

Abstract

Gravitational wave detection in space promises to open a new window in astronomy to study the strong field dynamics of gravitational physics in astrophysics and cosmology. The present article is an extract of a report on a feasibility study of gravitational wave detection in space, commissioned by the National Space Science Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences almost a decade ago. The objective of the study was to explore various possible mission options to detect gravitational waves in space alternative to that of the (e)LISA mission concept and look into the requirements on the technological fronts. On the basis of relative merits and balance between science and technological feasibility, a set of representative mission options were studied and in the end a mission design was recommended as the starting point for research and development in the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The mission design was eventually adopted by the current TAIJI mission as the baseline parameters for the project. Subject to technological constraints, the baseline parameters of the TAIJI mission were designed in such a way to optimise the capability of a spaceborne gravitational wave detector to probe high redshift light seed, intermediate mass black holes and thereby shed important light on the structure formation in early Universe.