English

LISA parameter estimation of supermassive black holes

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-02-27 v2

Abstract

We study parameter estimation of supermassive black holes in the range 105108\Ms10^5-10^8\Ms by LISA using the inspiral full post-Newtonian gravitational waveforms, and we compare the results with those arising from the commonly used restricted post-Newtonian approximation. The analysis shows that for observations of the last year before merger, the inclusion of the higher harmonics clearly improves the parameter estimation. We pay special attention to the source location errors and we study the improvement on the percentage of sources for which we could potentially identify electromagnetic counterparts. We also show how the additional harmonics can help to mitigate the impact of losing laser links during the mission.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0804.0492,
  title  = {LISA parameter estimation of supermassive black holes},
  author = {Miquel Trias and Alicia M. Sintes},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0804.0492},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Final version, 12th GWDAW (Gravitational Wave Data Analysis Workshop)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:27:17.208Z