LISA without Frontiers: global fits, signal catalogues, astrophysical backgrounds
LOCATION: Haus Sexten - Via Dolomiti 45, 39030, Sexten
DETAILS
Approximately ten years before the launch of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission to
detect gravitational waves (GW) from space, the scientific community is still far from solving some of
the major methodological and computational challenges that will determine the mission’s success. To
streamline the consolidation of a data-ready community we propose this workshop, where we focus on
themes that require special attention in the design of the mission’s data analysis suite. We aim to bring
together the broader astrophysics data community, including researchers focused on current GW groundbased
detector and pulsar timing array analyses together with LISA experts, as well as and scientists with
expertise in astrophysical and cosmological space observations, to spark new ideas and creative solutions
to these challenging problems.
By design, LISA monitors a unique frequency window populated by a wide variety of GW sources.
These include binaries with a range of masses (and mass ratios!), from supermassive black holes to
white dwarves, all the way to possibly exotic signals from the early Universe. The scientific potential is
astounding, spanning groundbreaking advances in massive star astronomy to revolutionary discoveries
in fundamental physics. The leading data analysis strategy for LISA is a global fit approach: all different
types of sources and signal components are fit simultaneously, resulting in a high-dimensional, highly
correlated sampling feat. Ultimately, different research groups will employ different approaches leading
to different fits, from which LISA scientists will strive to compile a final GW source catalogue and a
coherent data release.
A recurring theme both in terms of data analysis and source interpretation is the treatment of stochastic
components, which arise as a combination of instrumental noise and different expected or unexpected
astrophysical/cosmological signals, or backgrounds. On the one hand, some backgrounds will dominate
portions of the noise covariance, determining the effective sensitivity of the LISA instrument to specific
sources; on the other, characterising gravitational-wave backgrounds of various origins is a key science
objective of the LISA mission.
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FEE
300 Eur
WORKSHOP CODE FOR BUS AND PAYMENT
LISA26
ORGANIZERS