Presenter: Maria Jose Bustamente
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), set to launch in 2035, will open the millihertz gravitational wave (GW) sky, revealing a rich and complex astrophysical landscape. A vast number of compact objects will emit strong, long-duration GWs in this band, presenting novel data analysis challenges in GW science and offering exciting new opportunities for multimessenger research.
Among these sources, tens of thousands of white dwarf binaries in our galaxy will produce nearly monochromatic signals, acting as persistent "tuning forks" that map the Milky Way's structure.
In this talk, I'll introduce the idea and formalism for a gravitational wave timing array, where we used tiny modulations in high-frequency GWs-such as those from white dwarf binaries-to detect the low-frequency GWs they are embedded in, such as those coming from supermassive black hole binaries.
Furthermore, small compact objects in close inspiral into supermassive black holes (extreme mass ratio inspirals - EMRIs), such as SgrA*, can also emit complex, long-duration gravitational waves visible by LISA, proving the rich astrophysical environment surrounding them.
I will discuss how electromagnetic signatures of EMRIs can guide the search for their corresponding gravitational waves, providing a multi-messenger approach to uncover these elusive cosmic events.
Contact
Angelica Mitchell, J.D.
919-660-2510
angelica.mitchell@duke.edu