Possible LISA follow-on mission scientific objectives

Abstract

A major objective that has been suggested for a follow-on mission to a Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)-type mission is to investigate more completely how intermediate mass black holes were formed and grew in the early universe, before they evolved into the much more massive black holes at the centers of many galaxies today. The actual design of such a follow-on mission will of course depend on what is observed by a LISA-type mission, such as the recently modified proposal for an evolved LISA mission, with the interferometer arm lengths between spacecraft reduced from 5 million to 1 million km. However, the sensitivity goals of a follow-on mission are likely to be influenced strongly by the desire to be able to see mergers of 10 M⊙ black holes with roughly 3000 M⊙ or larger intermediate mass black holes out to as large redshifts as possible. Approximate calculations of the expected signal-to-noise have been made for a possible LISA follow-on mission that was suggested about eight years ago (Bender and Begelman 2005 Trends in Space Science and Cosmic Vision 2020 (Noordwijk: ESA Publications Division) pp 33–38), and was called the Advanced Laser Interferometer Antenna. Based on the calculations, it appears that detections out to a redshift of 10 would be possible for 10 M⊙ black holes spiraling into perhaps 5000 M⊙ or larger intermediate mass black holes if the extragalactic gravitational wave background due to close white dwarf binaries is in the currently estimated range.

The Evolution of Compact Binary Star Systems

“…WD binaries, especially those observed as AM CVn-stars and ultracompact X-ray binaries (UCXB), are potential GW sources within the frequency band (10 −4 − 1) Hz of the space GW interferometers like (the currently cancelled) LISA [187],1 NGO (eLISA) [10, 11], DEGIGO [857] and other proposed or planned low-frequency GW detectors [122, 40]. At the moment, eLISA is selected for the third large-class mission in ESA’s Cosmic Vision science program (L3).…”

A comprehensive simulation of weak-light phase-locking for space-borne gravitational wave antenna

“…antennas were designed to use laser interferometers to detect the G.W. signal at the frequencies from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz, and the corresponding working baselines for those interferometers were ranging from a few hundred thousand kilometers to several million kilometers [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. After long distance transmission, only a small fraction of the transmitted laser beam sent by the local satellite can be received by the detector of the remote satellite because of the large beam divergence and the finite aperture of the telescope [9,10].…”

Methodological demonstration of laser beam pointing control for space gravitational wave detection missions

“…in the past 20 years. [1][2][3][4][5][6] The most interesting G.W. frequency band covered by those space missions is from 0.1 mHz to 10 Hz and the corresponding working baselines of those space interferometers are ranging from a few hundred thousand kilometers to several million kilometers.…”