Resolving Super Massive Black Holes with LISA

Abstract

We study the angular resolution of the gravitational wave detector LISA and show that numerical relativity can drastically improve the accuracy of position location for coalescing Super Massive Black Hole (SMBH) binaries. For systems with total redshifted mass above $10^7 M_{\odot}$, LISA will mainly see the merger and ring-down of the gravitational wave (GW) signal, which can now be computed numerically using the full Einstein equations. Using numerical waveforms that also include about ten GW cycles of inspiral, we improve inspiral-only position estimates by an order of magnitude. We show that LISA localizes half of all such systems at $z=1$ to better than 3 arcminutes and the best 20% to within one arcminute. This will give excellent prospects for identifying the host galaxy.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur