Solar Plasma Noise in TianQin Laser Propagation: An Extreme Case and Statistical Analysis

TL;DR

This study analyzes how extreme solar eruptions and solar wind conditions affect laser propagation noise in TianQin, revealing significant noise levels during strong solar events and the effectiveness of time-delay interferometry in noise suppression.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed statistical analysis of laser propagation noise under various solar wind conditions using MHD simulations for TianQin.

Findings

Laser propagation noise can reach nearly 100% of TianQin's displacement noise requirement during extreme solar eruptions.

A linear correlation exists between laser noise and solar wind parameters, especially dynamic pressure.

Time-delay interferometry effectively reduces the occurrence of high laser propagation noise to below 1%.

Abstract

TianQin proposes to detect gravitational wave signals by using laser interferometry. However, laser propagation effect introduces a potential noise factor for TianQin. In this work, we used MHD simulations to obtain the space magnetic field and plasma distributions during an extremely strong solar eruption, and based on the magnetohydrodynamic simulation result, we investigate laser propagation noise for TianQin. For the extremely strong solar eruption event, we find that the laser propagation noise closely approaches 100\% of TianQin's displacement noise requirement for Michelson combination; While the laser propagation noise is still about 30\% of TianQin's displacement noise requirement for time-delay interferometry X combination. In addition, we investigate the laser propagation noise for 12 cases with different solar wind conditions. Our finding reveals a linear correlation between the laser propagation noise and several space weather parameters, e.g., solar wind dynamic pressure, Sym-H, and $D$st, where the correlation coefficients for solar wind dynamic pressure is strongest. Combining the cumulative distribution of solar wind dynamic pressure from 1999 to 2021 with the linear correlation between solar wind dynamic pressure and laser propagation noise, we have determined that the occurrence rate of the laser propagation noise to be greater than 30\% of TianQin's displacement noise requirement for Michelson combination over the entire solar activity week is about 15\%. In addition, we find that time-delay interferometry can suppress the laser propagation noise, and reduce the occurrence rate of the laser propagation noise exceeding 30\% of TianQin's requirement to less than 1\%.