TianQin is a proposal for a space-borne detector of gravitational waves in the millihertz frequencies. The experiment relies on a constellation of three drag-free spacecraft orbiting the Earth. Inter-spacecraft laser interferometry is used to monitor the distances between the test masses. The experiment is designed to be capable of detecting a signal with high confidence from a single source of gravitational waves within a few months of observing time. We describe the preliminary mission concept for TianQin, including the candidate source and experimental designs. We present estimates for the major constituents of the experiment's error budget and discuss the project's overall feasibility. Given the current level of technology readiness, we expect TianQin to be flown in the second half of the next decade.
@article{arxiv.1512.02076,
title = {TianQin: a space-borne gravitational wave detector},
author = {Jun Luo and Li-Sheng Chen and Hui-Zong Duan and Yun-Gui Gong and Shoucun Hu and Jianghui Ji and Qi Liu and Jianwei Mei and Vadim Milyukov and Mikhail Sazhin and Cheng-Gang Shao and Viktor T. Toth and Hai-Bo Tu and Yamin Wang and Yan Wang and Hsien-Chi Yeh and Ming-Sheng Zhan and Yonghe Zhang and Vladimir Zharov and Ze-Bing Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1512.02076},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
32 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Class. Quantum Grav