All Physics Faculty Publications

LISA: Seeing the Low Frequency Gravitational Wave Cosmos

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Proceedings of the Snowbird Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology Workshop

Volume

246

Publication Date

2010

First Page

123

Last Page

130

Abstract

Late in the 2010’s, NASA and ESA will launch the first gravitational wave observatory in space: the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). LISA is a constellation of spacecraft that operate in concert as a 5-million kilometer arm length interferometer. It will be sensitive to low-frequency radiation in the millihertz regime of the gravitational wave spectrum, observing massive black hole binaries, interacting binaries in the galaxy, the capture of stellar mass objects by supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, and possibly stochastic backgrounds of gravitational radiation of cosmological origin. This paper reviews the LISA configuration and operations, and some of the science that LISA’s observations of the Cosmos will reveal.

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