Waveform Modelling for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna

Understand

LISA, the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, will usher in a new era in gravitational-wave astronomy.

• As the first anticipated space-based gravitational-wave detector, it will expand our view to the millihertz gravitational-wave sky, where a spectacular variety of interesting new sources abound: from millions of ultra-compact binaries in our Galaxy, to mergers of massive black holes at cosmological distances; from the beginnings of inspirals that will venture into the ground-based detectors' view to the death spiral of compact objects into massive black holes, and many sources in between.
• Central to realising LISA's discovery potential are waveform models, the theoretical and phenomenological predictions of the pattern of gravitational waves that these sources emit.
• This white paper is presented on behalf of the Waveform Working Group for the LISA Consortium.