4 research outputs found
Optimal statistic for detecting gravitational wave signals from binary inspirals with LISA
A binary compact object early in its inspiral phase will be picked up by its
nearly monochromatic gravitational radiation by LISA. But even this innocuous
appearing candidate poses interesting detection challenges. The data that will
be scanned for such sources will be a set of three functions of LISA's twelve
data streams obtained through time-delay interferometry, which is necessary to
cancel the noise contributions from laser-frequency fluctuations and
optical-bench motions to these data streams. We call these three functions
pseudo-detectors. The sensitivity of any pseudo-detector to a given sky
position is a function of LISA's orbital position. Moreover, at a given point
in LISA's orbit, each pseudo-detector has a different sensitivity to the same
sky position. In this work, we obtain the optimal statistic for detecting
gravitational wave signals, such as from compact binaries early in their
inspiral stage, in LISA data. We also present how the sensitivity of LISA,
defined by this optimal statistic, varies as a function of sky position and
LISA's orbital location. Finally, we show how a real-time search for inspiral
signals can be implemented on the LISA data by constructing a bank of templates
in the sky positions.Comment: 22 pages, 15 eps figures, Latex, uses iopart style/class files. Based
on talk given at the 8th Gravitational Wave Data Analysis Workshop,
Milwaukee, USA, December 17-20, 2003. Accepted for publication in Class.
Quant. Gra
The Gravitational Universe
The last century has seen enormous progress in our understanding of the Universe. We know the life cycles of stars, the structure of galaxies, the remnants of the big bang, and have a general understanding of how the Universe evolved. We have come remarkably far using electromagnetic radiation as our tool for observing the Universe. However, gravity is the engine behind many of the processes in the Universe, and much of its action is dark. Opening a gravitational window on the Universe will let us go further than any alternative. Gravity has its own messenger: Gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime. They travel essentially undisturbed and let us peer deep into the formation of the first seed black holes, exploring redshifts as large as z ~ 20, prior to the epoch of cosmic re-ionisation. Exquisite and unprecedented measurements of black hole masses and spins will make it possible to trace the history of black holes across all stages of galaxy evolution, and at the same time constrain any deviation from the Kerr metric of General Relativity. eLISA will be the first ever mission to study the entire Universe with gravitational waves. eLISA is an all-sky monitor and will offer a wide view of a dynamic cosmos using gravitational waves as new and unique messengers to unveil The Gravitational Universe. It provides the closest ever view of the early processes at TeV energies, has guaranteed sources in the form of verification binaries in the Milky Way, and can probe the entire Universe, from its smallest scales around singularities and black holes, all the way to cosmological dimensions
The Gravitational Universe
20 pages; submitted to the European Space Agency on May 24th, 2013 for the L2/L3 selection of ESA's Cosmic Vision programThe last century has seen enormous progress in our understanding of the Universe. We know the life cycles of stars, the structure of galaxies, the remnants of the big bang, and have a general understanding of how the Universe evolved. We have come remarkably far using electromagnetic radiation as our tool for observing the Universe. However, gravity is the engine behind many of the processes in the Universe, and much of its action is dark. Opening a gravitational window on the Universe will let us go further than any alternative. Gravity has its own messenger: Gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime. They travel essentially undisturbed and let us peer deep into the formation of the first seed black holes, exploring redshifts as large as z ~ 20, prior to the epoch of cosmic re-ionisation. Exquisite and unprecedented measurements of black hole masses and spins will make it possible to trace the history of black holes across all stages of galaxy evolution, and at the same time constrain any deviation from the Kerr metric of General Relativity. eLISA will be the first ever mission to study the entire Universe with gravitational waves. eLISA is an all-sky monitor and will offer a wide view of a dynamic cosmos using gravitational waves as new and unique messengers to unveil The Gravitational Universe. It provides the closest ever view of the early processes at TeV energies, has guaranteed sources in the form of verification binaries in the Milky Way, and can probe the entire Universe, from its smallest scales around singularities and black holes, all the way to cosmological dimensions