Astrophysics (Index)About

LISA

(Laser Interferometer Space Antenna)
(proposed space mission to detect gravitational waves)

LISA (or Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) is a proposed European Space Agency (ESA) space mission to detect gravitational waves by measuring the distance between three spacecraft using laser interferometry. Three probes, placed in a triangle, in an Earth-trailing orbit, spaced 2.5 million kilometers from each other, would continually measure the distances between them, sensing changes to these distances resulting from gravitational waves. A 2037 launch is envisioned. The three would host of three Michelson interferometers with the arms much longer than those of LIGO, which would be sensitive to a considerably lower GW frequency (0.0001 to 0.1 Hz), corresponding to a larger orbital period (roughly 10 to 10,000 seconds). In addition to extragalactic sources, a number of scenarios common to the Milky Way (e.g., co-orbiting binary compact objects) will produce such waves from many simultaneous targets, producing a need for considerable analysis to sort out the data. With analysis, the masses and rotations of the black holes should be determinable from LISA-provided data.

LISA Pathfinder was a 2015-2017 mission to test some of the necessary technology in space, in particular, the technology to provide extremely stable end-points to the interferometers.

LISA was earlier conceived (with 5 million kilometer arms) aiming for deployment in the 2015-2025 time frame, but NASA (an original participant) withdrew in 2011, at which time a scaled-down version called New Gravitational Wave Observatory (NGO) was proposed in its place, which was also not accepted. The current LISA plan is scaled between these earlier efforts, aiming for a much later launch. Some other later proposals also use variants of the name "LISA".


(observatory,interferometer,space,ESA,gravitational waves,plan)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_Interferometer_Space_Antenna
http://sci.esa.int/lisa/
https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/lisa
https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.00786
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019BAAS...51g..77T/abstract
https://lisa.nasa.gov/
https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.08924
https://www.lisamission.org/

Referenced by pages:
Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
black hole merger
DECIGO
extreme mass ratio inspiral (EMRI)
gravitational wave (GW)
gravitational wave spectrum
ion engine
New Gravitational Wave Observatory (NGO)
pulsar timing array (PTA)
TianQin
ZTF J1539+5027

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