2021ApJ...914..139S

TianQin is a proposed space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) observatory composed of three identical satellites orbiting around the geocenter with a radius of 10⁵ km. It aims at detecting GWs in the frequency range of 0.1 mHz-1 Hz. The detection of GW relies on the high-precision measurement of optical path length at the 10^–12 m level. The dispersion of space plasma can lead to the optical path difference (OPD, Δl) along the propagation of laser beams between any pair of satellites. Here, we study the OPD noises for TianQin. The Space Weather Modeling Framework is used to simulate the interaction between the Earth magnetosphere and solar wind. From the simulations, we extract the magnetic field and plasma parameters on the orbits of TianQin at four relative positions of the satellite constellation in the Earth magnetosphere. We calculate the OPD noise for single link, Michelson combination, and Time-Delay Interferometry (TDI) combinations (α and X). For single link and Michelson interferometer, the maxima of |Δl| are on the order of 1 pm. For the TDI combinations, these can be suppressed to about 0.004 and 0.008 pm for α and X. The OPD noise of the Michelson combination is colored in the concerned frequency range; while the ones for the TDI combinations are approximately white. Furthermore, we calculate the ratio of the equivalent strain of the OPD noise to that of TQ, and find that the OPD noises for the TDI combinations can be neglected in the most sensitive frequency range of TQ.