| Abstract: | Plasma turbulence may lead to additional wavefront distortion of inter-spacecraft laser beamsduring the operation of spaceborne gravitational wave (GW) observatories, e.g. TianQin. Bymaking use of the Space Weather Modelling Framework (SWMF) model and realistic orbit datafor the TianQin constellation, the characteristic parameters of the plasma turbulence present atthe TianQin orbit are obtained. As a first step, this work is based on the assumptions that the coldplasma approximation is valid and that the effects of the electromagnetic field induced by chargeseparation within the Debye length on the laser’s wavefront can be ignored. An atmosphericturbulence–laser interaction model is then applied to analyze the effects of the plasma turbulenceon the inter-spacecraft laser’s wavefront. The preliminary results show that the wavefrontdistortion caused by the plasma turbulence is 10–9 rad, which is significantly less than thedesignated error budget, i.e. 10–6 rad, and thus will not affect the laser interferometry. |
