Effect of Earth-Moon's gravity on TianQin's range acceleration noise. II. Impact of orbit selection

TL;DR

This study evaluates how different orbital configurations of TianQin affect gravity-induced noise in laser interferometry, providing insights crucial for optimizing orbit design in space-based gravitational wave detection.

Contribution

It systematically analyzes the impact of orbital orientation and radius on gravitational noise spectra, aiding in the design of future geocentric gravitational wave detectors.

Findings

Orbital orientation and radius significantly influence noise spectra.

Roll-off frequencies vary with orbit parameters, affecting detection bands.

Special cases like geostationary orbits offer unique noise characteristics.

Abstract

The paper is a sequel to our previous work (Zhang et al. Phys. Rev. D 103, 062001 (2021)). For proposed geocentric space-based gravitational wave detectors such as TianQin, gLISA, and GADFLI, the gravity-field disturbances, i.e., the so called ``orbital noise'', from the Earth-Moon system on the sensitive intersatellite laser interferometric measurements should be carefully evaluated and taken into account in the concept studies. Based on TianQin, we investigate how the effect, in terms of frequency spectra, varies with different choices of orbital orientations and radii through single-variable studies, and present the corresponding roll-off frequencies that may set the lower bounds of the targeted detection bands. The results, including the special cases of geostationary orbits (gLISA/GADFLI) and repeat orbits, can provide a useful input to orbit and constellation design for future geocentric missions.