
All Physics Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Physical Review D
Volume
62
Issue
6
Publication Date
2000
First Page
062001
Last Page
10
Arxiv Identifier
arXiv:gr-qc/9909080v2
Abstract
To determine whether particular sources of gravitational radiation will be detectable by a specific gravitational wave detector, it is necessary to know the sensitivity limits of the instrument. These instrumental sensitivities are often depicted (after averaging over source position and polarization) by graphing the minimal values of the gravitational wave amplitude detectable by the instrument versus the frequency of the gravitational wave. This paper describes in detail how to compute such a sensitivity curve given a set of specifications for a spaceborne laser interferometer gravitational wave observatory. Minor errors in the prior literature are corrected, and the first (mostly) analytic calculation of the gravitational wave transfer function is presented. Example sensitivity curve calculations are presented for the proposed LISA interferometer.
Recommended Citation
Larson, S. L., Hiscock, W. A., & Hellings, R. W. (2000). Sensitivity curves for spaceborne gravitational wave interferometers. Physical Review D, 62(6), 062001.
Comments
Published by the American Physical Society in Physical Review D. Publisher PDF available through remote link.
Author e-print is deposited in arXiv.org.