The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna: Unveiling the Millihertz Gravitational Wave Sky
Abstract
The first terrestrial gravitational wave interferometers have dramatically underscored the scientific value of observing the Universe through an entirely different window, and of folding this new channel of information with traditional astronomical data for a multimessenger view. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will broaden the reach of gravitational wave astronomy by conducting the first survey of the millihertz gravitational wave sky, detecting tens of thousands of individual astrophysical sources ranging from white-dwarf binaries in our own galaxy to mergers of massive black holes at redshifts extending beyond the epoch of reionization. These observations will inform - and transform - our understanding of the end state of stellar evolution, massive black hole birth, and the co-evolution of galaxies and black holes through cosmic time. LISA also has the potential to detect gravitational wave emission from elusive astrophysical sources such as intermediate-mass black holes as well as exotic cosmological sources such as inflationary fields and cosmic string cusps.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1907.06482,
title = {The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna: Unveiling the Millihertz Gravitational Wave Sky},
author = {John Baker and Jillian Bellovary and Peter L. Bender and Emanuele Berti and Robert Caldwell and Jordan Camp and John W. Conklin and Neil Cornish and Curt Cutler and Ryan DeRosa and Michael Eracleous and Elizabeth C. Ferrara and Samuel Francis and Martin Hewitson and Kelly Holley-Bockelmann and Ann Hornschemeier and Craig Hogan and Brittany Kamai and Bernard J. Kelly and Joey Shapiro Key and Shane L. Larson and Jeff Livas and Sridhar Manthripragada and Kirk McKenzie and Sean T. McWilliams and Guido Mueller and Priyamvada Natarajan and Kenji Numata and Norman Rioux and Shannon R. Sankar and Jeremy Schnittman and David Shoemaker and Deirdre Shoemaker and Jacob Slutsky and Robert Spero and Robin Stebbins and Ira Thorpe and Michele Vallisneri and Brent Ware and Peter Wass and Anthony Yu and John Ziemer},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.06482},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
White Paper submitted to Astro2020 (2020 Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics). v2: fixed a reference