The TianQin project: current progress on science and technology
Creators: name: Mei, Jianwei
name: Bai, Yan-Zheng
name: Bao, Jiahui
name: Barausse, Enrico
name: Cai, Lin
name: Canuto, Enrico
name: Cao, Bin
name: Chen, Wei-Ming
name: Chen, Yu
name: Ding, Yan-Wei
name: Duan, Hui-Zong
name: Fan, Huimin
name: Feng, Wen-Fan
name: Fu, Honglin
name: Gao, Qing
name: Gao, TianQuan
name: Gong, Yungui
name: Gou, Xingyu
name: Gu, Chao-Zheng
name: Gu, De-Feng
name: He, Zi-Qi
name: Hendry, Martin
name: Hong, Wei
name: Hu, Xin-Chun
name: Hu, Yi-Ming
name: Hu, Yuexin
name: Huang, Shun-Jia
name: Huang, Xiang-Qing
name: Jiang, Qinghua
name: Jiang, Yuan-Ze
name: Jiang, Yun
name: Jiang, Zhen
name: Jin, Hong-Ming
name: Korol, Valeriya
name: Li, Hong-Yin
name: Li, Ming
name: Li, Ming
name: Li, Pengcheng
name: Li, Rongwang
name: Li, Yuqiang
name: Li, Zhu
name: Li, Zhulian
name: Li, Zhu-Xi
name: Liang, Yu-Rong
name: Liang, Zheng-Cheng
name: Liao, Fang-Jie
name: Liu, Shuai
name: Liu, Yan-Chong
name: Liu, Li
name: Liu, Pei-Bo
name: Liu, Xuhui
name: Liu, Yuan
name: Lu, Xiong-Fei
name: Lu, Yang
name: Lu, Ze-Huang
name: Luo, Yan
name: Luo, Zhi-Cai
name: Milyukov, Vadim
name: Ming, Min
name: Pi, Xiaoyu
name: Qin, Chenggang
name: Qu, Shao-Bo
name: Sesana, Alberto
name: Shao, Chenggang
name: Shi, Changfu
name: Su, Wei
name: Tan, Ding-Yin
name: Tan, Yujie
name: Tan, Zhuangbin
name: Tu, Liang-Cheng
name: Wang, Bin
name: Wang, Cheng-Rui
name: Wang, Fengbin
name: Wang, Guan-Fang
name: Wang, Haitian
name: Wang, Jian
name: Wang, Lijiao
name: Wang, Panpan
name: Wang, Xudong
name: Wang, Yan
name: Wang, Yi-Fan
name: Wei, Ran
name: Wu, Shu-Chao
name: Xiao, Chun-Yu
name: Xu, Xiao-Shi
name: Xue, Chao
name: Yang, Fang-Chao
name: Yang, Liang
name: Yang, Ming-Lin
name: Yang, Shan-Qing
name: Ye, Bobing
name: Yeh, Hsien-Chi
name: Yu, Shenghua
name: Zhai, Dongsheng
name: Zhang, Caishi
name: Zhang, Haitao
name: Zhang, Jian-dong
name: Zhang, Jie
name: Zhang, Lihua
name: Zhang, Xin
name: Zhang, Xuefeng
name: Zhou, Hao
name: Zhou, Ming-Yue
name: Zhou, Ze-Bing
name: Zhu, Dong-Dong
name: Zi, Tie-Guang
name: Luo, Jun
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: TianQin is a planned space-based gravitational wave (GW) observatory consisting of three earth orbiting satellites with an orbital radius of about $10^5~{\rm km}$. The satellites will form a equilateral triangle constellation the plane of which is nearly perpendicular to the ecliptic plane. TianQin aims to detect GWs between $10^{-4}~{\rm Hz}$ and $1~{\rm Hz}$ that can be generated by a wide variety of important astrophysical and cosmological sources, including the inspiral of Galactic ultra-compact binaries, the inspiral of stellar-mass black hole binaries, extreme mass ratio inspirals, the merger of massive black hole binaries, and possibly the energetic processes in the very early universe or exotic sources such as cosmic strings. In order to start science operations around 2035, a roadmap called the 0123 plan is being used to bring the key technologies of TianQin to maturity, supported by the construction of a series of research facilities on the ground. Two major projects of the 0123 plan are being carried out. In this process, the team has created a new generation $17~{\rm cm}$ single-body hollow corner-cube retro-reflector which has been launched with the QueQiao satellite on 21 May 2018; a new laser ranging station equipped with a $1.2~{\rm m}$ telescope has been constructed and the station has successfully ranged to all the five retro-reflectors on the Moon; and the TianQin-1 experimental satellite has been launched on 20 December 2019 and the first round result shows that the satellite has exceeded all of its mission requirements.
description: 16 pages, 1 figure, invited article to a special section in PTEP