Sensitivity functions of spaceborne gravitational wave detectors for arbitrary time-delay interferometry combinations

Abstract

The principal aim of the space-based gravitational wave detectors is to explore the gravitational waves in the 0.1 mHz-1 Hz frequency band. To maximize the potential capability of the experimental apparatus regarding the instrument performance, one needs to acquire accurate information on its sensitivity limit. The sensitivity curve in question, by definition, depends on the amplitudes of signal and noise involved in the measurement. In this work, we explicitly derive, under rather universal assumptions irrelevant to the detailed form of the time-delay interferometry combination, general results of the sensitivity functions. The key feature of the present approach is that both the all-sky and polarization average can be factorized and henceforth evaluated analytically. The resultant expressions are then applied to a variety of time-delay interferometry combinations, inclusively for the optimal channels. In particular, the asymptotical forms of the sensitivity functions are obtained at the high and low frequency limits, and the subsequential implications are analyzed. When compared with the approaches in terms of numerical integration, the obtained formulism furnishes a more straightforward as well as efficient access to the relevant signal noise ratios for the spaceborne gravitational wave detectors.