LISA Sources and Data Analysis

LISA Sources and Data Analysis

Science requirements

We work with the LISA projects mission science office on the development of the Science Requirements Document which underlies the foundation upon which LISA design and operation decisions are based. In this regard we are investigating the observation of SMBH-SMBH systems as sources of low-frequency gravitational radiation to assess the value of low-frequency sensitivity in LISA design considerations. We are also investigating the SMBH-SMBH merger rate expectations based on the astrophysics of large-scale structure formation in z<20 cosmology. Our work will diversify to address other relevant concerns in the future.

Data analysis

We are expanding the scope of our investigations to include topics in LISA data analysis. Our initial work is focused on the observation of SMBH-SMBH systems through the inspiral merger, and ringdown stages, though we are interested in all aspects of LISA data analysis.

MLDA

Goddard sponsors the Mock LISA Data Archive (MLDA) a community supported website which aims to facilitate the benchmarking of different data analysis procedures, the development of common data formats, and the emergence of conventional standards within the developing LISA data analysis community. The MLDA currently provides realistic simulations of the output from the LISA observatory to interested researchers developing algorithms for analyzing LISA data.