Detection of Lighthouses by Gravitational Waves - on Earth and in Space

Abstract.

‘Lighthouses in the Universe’ would be the strongest cosmic events imaginable. They are bound to emit very strong gravitational waves. Laser interferometry is the most promising scheme to detect these waves, and international efforts will provide detectors both on Earth and in space.

Ground-based detectors are nearing completion at five sites worldwide. These ground-based detectors are most sensitive between about 10 Hz and several kHz.

The high-mass events that constitute the ‘Lighthouses’ will emit their gravitational waves mainly at much lower frequencies.

LISA (the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) will, with its long arms of 5 million km, be sensitive in a much lower frequency regime: 10^-5 to 1 Hz.

The poster gave an overview of the detectors and the sensitivities that will be reached, and a notion of the international collaborations for data analysis of the ground-based detectors, as well as the collaboration of ESA and NASA in the (common) LISA project.