Weak lensing effects in the measurement of the dark energy equation of state with LISA

Understand

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna's (LISA's) observation of supermassive binary black holes (SMBBH) could provide a new tool for precision cosmography.

• Inclusion of sub-dominant signal harmonics in the inspiral signal allows for high-accuracy sky localization, dramatically improving the chances of finding the host galaxy and obtaining its redshift.
• A SMBBH merger can potentially have component masses from a wide range ($10^5 - 10^8\,\Ms$) over which parameter accuracies vary considerably.
• We perform an in-depth study in order to understand (i) what fraction of possible SMBBH mergers allow for sky localization, depending on the parameters of the source, and (ii) how accurately $w$ can be measured when the host galaxy can be identified.