Observing extreme-mass-ratio inspirals with eLISA/NGO
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2012-10-31 v1
Abstract
The extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) of stellar mass compact objects into massive black holes in the centres of galaxies are an important source of low-frequency gravitational waves for space-based detectors. We discuss the prospects for detecting these sources with the evolved Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (eLISA), recently proposed as an ESA mission candidate under the name NGO. We show that NGO could observe a few tens of EMRIs over its two year mission lifetime at redshifts z < 0.5 and describe how the event rate changes under possible alternative specifications of the eLISA design.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1210.8066,
title = {Observing extreme-mass-ratio inspirals with eLISA/NGO},
author = {Jonathan R Gair and Edward K Porter},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1210.8066},
year = {2012}
}
Comments
6 pages, 1 figure, to appear in proceedings of ninth LISA Symposium