Space-based gravitational wave detectors based on the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) design operate by synthesizing one or more interferometers from fringe velocity measurements generated by changes in the light travel time between three s
pacecraft in a special set of drag-free heliocentric orbits. These orbits determine the inclination of the synthesized interferometer with respect to the ecliptic plane. Once these spacecraft are placed in their orbits, the orientation of the interferometers at any future time is fixed by Keplers Laws based on the initial orientation of the spacecraft constellation, which may be freely chosen. Over the course of a full solar orbit, the initial orientation determines a set of locations on the sky were the detector has greatest sensitivity to gravitational waves as well as a set of locations where nulls in the detector response fall. By artful choice of the initial orientation, we can choose to optimize or suppress the antennas sensitivity to sources whose location may be known in advance (e.g., the Galactic Center or globular clusters).
Galactic globular clusters are old, dense star systems typically containing 10super{4}--10super{7} stars. As an old population of stars, globular clusters contain many collapsed and degenerate objects. As a dense population of stars, globular cluster
s are the scene of many interesting close dynamical interactions between stars. These dynamical interactions can alter the evolution of individual stars and can produce tight binary systems containing one or two compact objects. In this review, we discuss theoretical models of globular cluster evolution and binary evolution, techniques for simulating this evolution that leads to relativistic binaries, and current and possible future observational evidence for this population. Our discussion of globular cluster evolution will focus on the processes that boost the production of hard binary systems and the subsequent interaction of these binaries that can alter the properties of both bodies and can lead to exotic objects. Direct {it N}-body integrations and Fokker--Planck simulations of the evolution of globular clusters that incorporate tidal interactions and lead to predictions of relativistic binary populations are also discussed. We discuss the current observational evidence for cataclysmic variables, millisecond pulsars, and low-mass X-ray binaries as well as possible future detection of relativistic binaries with gravitational radiation.
The Mock LISA Data Challenges are a program to demonstrate LISA data-analysis capabilities and to encourage their development. Each round of challenges consists of one or more datasets containing simulated instrument noise and gravitational waves fro
m sources of undisclosed parameters. Participants analyze the datasets and report best-fit solutions for the source parameters. Here we present the results of the third challenge, issued in Apr 2008, which demonstrated the positive recovery of signals from chirping Galactic binaries, from spinning supermassive--black-hole binaries (with optimal SNRs between ~ 10 and 2000), from simultaneous extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (SNRs of 10-50), from cosmic-string-cusp bursts (SNRs of 10-100), and from a relatively loud isotropic background with Omega_gw(f) ~ 10^-11, slightly below the LISA instrument noise.
The Mock LISA Data Challenges are a programme to demonstrate and encourage the development of LISA data-analysis capabilities, tools and techniques. At the time of this workshop, three rounds of challenges had been completed, and the next was about t
o start. In this article we provide a critical analysis of entries to the latest completed round, Challenge 1B. The entries confirm the consolidation of a range of data-analysis techniques for Galactic and massive--black-hole binaries, and they include the first convincing examples of detection and parameter estimation of extreme--mass-ratio inspiral sources. In this article we also introduce the next round, Challenge 3. Its data sets feature more realistic waveform models (e.g., Galactic binaries may now chirp, and massive--black-hole binaries may precess due to spin interactions), as well as new source classes (bursts from cosmic strings, isotropic stochastic backgrounds) and more complicated nonsymmetric instrument noise.
The Mock LISA Data Challenges are a program to demonstrate LISA data-analysis capabilities and to encourage their development. Each round of challenges consists of several data sets containing simulated instrument noise and gravitational-wave sources
of undisclosed parameters. Participants are asked to analyze the data sets and report the maximum information about source parameters. The challenges are being released in rounds of increasing complexity and realism: in this proceeding we present the results of Challenge 2, issued in January 2007, which successfully demonstrated the recovery of signals from supermassive black-hole binaries, from ~20,000 overlapping Galactic white-dwarf binaries, and from the extreme-mass-ratio inspirals of compact objects into central galactic black holes.
