LISA
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
LISA
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
With the recent direct detections of gravitational waves from merging black holes by the LIGO observatories, the era of gravitational wave astronomy has begun. But on Earth, observations are limited to direct collisions of black holes and/or neutron stars which produce high-frequency signals. Sources with much larger masses, such as the mergers of massive black holes at the centers of galaxies, or tight binaries of e.g. double white dwarfs within the Milky Way, produce signals at much lower frequencies (mHz), undetectable on Earth.
REVOLUTIONARY INFORMATION ABOUT THE DARK UNIVERSE
LISA is a space-borne Gravitational Wave Observatory with an arm-length of 2.5 million km, compared to the few km's of the ground-based observatories. LISA will enable the discovery of the parts of the universe that are invisible by electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves at high frequecies.
LISA will detect continuous low-frequency gravitational waves from thousands of tight Galactic binaries with compact objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes) – up to a million years before they merge. The mission will complement current (LIGO) ground-based detectors that register high-frequency gravitational waves from colliding (merging) black holes and neutron stars. Gravitational wave astrophysics is a key probe for exploring fundamental physics.
An ideal instrument for measuring gravitational waves over a broad band of low frequencies is a laser interferometer with an arm length as large as possible and long integration times, the primary impetus for a space-borne detector. Hence LISA can be thought of as a high-precision Michelson interferometer in space with an arm length of 2.5 million km. The arm length has been carefully chosen to allow observation of most of the interesting sources of gravitational waves in the target frequency band.
LISA will complement traditional astronomical observations based on the electromagnetic spectrum (for example, observations from visible light, infra-red or x-rays). It will open the gravitational wave window in space and measure gravitational radiation over a broad band of frequencies, from about 0.1 mHz to 100 mHz, a band where the Universe is richly populated by strong sources of gravitational waves.
A EUROPEAN CONSORTIUM
LISA consists of a Consortium which represents the European states involved in the project: Germany, Italy, France, UK, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, The Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, Romania, and the USA.
Aalborg University is a part of the consortium, where Professor Thomas Tauris from Department of Materials and Production is a member of the LISA Astrophysics Working Group. Thomas contributes with theoretical modelling of the gravitational wave sources and co-coordinates a major white paper about LISA astrophysics.
Project Facts
PROJECT NAME
Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA)
EFFECTIVE START/END DATE
Ongoing
PROJECT PARTNERS
- Aalborg University
.. and several other Consortium partners
AAU Space Group