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While previous studies have shown a strong preference for a futuremid-infrared nulling interferometer space mission to detect planets within theHZ around M dwarfs, we here focus on a more conservative approach toward theconcept of habitability and present yield estimates for two stellar samplesconsisting of nearby (d<20 pc) Sun-like stars (4800-6300 K) and nearby FGK-typestars (3940-7220 K) accessible to such a mission. Our yield estimates are basedon recently derived occurrence rates of rocky planets from the Kepler missionand our LIFE exoplanet observation simulation tool LIFEsim, which includes allmain astrophysical noise sources, but no instrumental noise sources as yet.Depending on a pessimistic or optimistic extrapolation of the Kepler results,we find that during a 2.5-year search phase, LIFE could detect between ~10-16(average) or ~5-34 (including 1$\sigma$ uncertainties) rocky planets (0.5-1.5R${}_\rm{Earth}$) within the optimistic HZ of Sun-like stars and between ~4-6(average) or ~1-13 (including 1$\sigma$ uncertainties) exo-Earth candidates(EECs) assuming four collector spacecraft equipped with 2 m mirrors and aconservative instrument throughput of 5%. With D=3.5 m or 1 m mirrors, theyield $Y$ changes strongly, following approximately $Y \propto D^{3/2}$. Withthe larger sample of FGK-type stars, the yield increases to ~16-22 (average)rocky planets within the optimistic HZ and ~5-8 (average) EECs. Furthermore, wefind that in addition to the mirror diameter, the yield depends strongly on thetotal throughput, but only weakly on the exozodiacal dust level and theaccessible wavelength range of the mission. When the focus lies entirely onSun-like stars, larger mirrors (~3 m with 5% total throughput) or a bettertotal throughput (~20% with 2 m mirrors) are required to detect a statisticallyrelevant sample of ~30 rocky planets within the optimistic HZ.

Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): VI. Detecting rocky exoplanets in the habitable zones of Sun-like stars