Numerical solutions for phase noise due to pointing jitter with the LISA telescope

The aim of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is to detect gravitational waves through a phase modulation in long (2.5 Mkm) laser light links between spacecraft. Among other noise sources to be addressed are the phase fluctuations caused by a possible angular jitter of the emitted beam. The present paper follows our preceding one (Vinet et al 2019 Class. Quant. Grav. 36, 205 003) based on an analytical study of the far field phase. We address here a numerical treatment of the phase, to first order in the emitted wavefront aberrations, but without any assumptions on the static bias term. We verify that, in the phase change, the higher order terms in the static mispointing are consistent with the results found in our preceding paper.

LISA Telescope: Phase noise due to pointing jitter

In a space based gravitational wave antenna like LISA, involving long light paths linking distant emitter/receiver spacecrafts, signal detection amounts to measuring the light-distance variationsthrough a phase change at the receiver. This is why spurious phase fluctuations due to various mechanical/thermal effects must be carefully studied. We consider here a possible pointing jitter in the light beam sent from the emitter. We show how the resulting phase noise depends on the quality of the wavefront due to the incident beam impinging on the telescope and due to the imperfections of the telescope itself. Namely, we numerically assess the crossed influence of various defects (aberrations and astigmatisms), inherent to a real telescope with pointing fluctuations.

Globally coherent short duration magnetic field transients and their effect on ground based gravitational-wave detectors

It has been recognized that the magnetic fields from the Schumann resonances could affect the search for a stochastic gravitational-wave background by LIGO and Virgo. Presented here are the observations of short duration magnetic field transients that are coincident in the magnetometers at the LIGO and Virgo sites. Data from low-noise magnetometers in Poland and Colorado, USA, are also used and show short duration magnetic transients of global extent. We measure at least 2.3 coincident (between Poland and Colorado) magnetic transient events per day where one of the pulses exceeds 200 pT. Given the recently measured values of the magnetic coupling to differential arm motion for Advanced LIGO, there would be a few events per day that would appear simultaneously at the gravitational-wave detector sites and could move the test masses of order $10^{-18}$ m. We confirm that in the advanced detector era short duration transient gravitational-wave searches must account for correlated magnetic field noise in the global detector network.

Inference on inspiral signals using LISA MLDC data

In this paper we describe a Bayesian inference framework for analysis of data obtained by LISA. We set up a model for binary inspiral signals as defined for the Mock LISA Data Challenge 1.2 (MLDC), and implemented a Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm to facilitate exploration and integration of the posterior distribution over the 9-dimensional parameter space. Here we present intermediate results showing how, using this method, information about the 9 parameters can be extracted from the data.

Coherent Bayesian analysis of inspiral signals

We present in this paper a Bayesian parameter estimation method for the analysis of interferometric gravitational wave observations of an inspiral of binary compact objects using data recorded simultaneously by a network of several interferometers at different sites. We consider neutron star or black hole inspirals that are modeled to 3.5 post-Newtonian (PN) order in phase and 2.5 PN in amplitude. Inference is facilitated using Markov chain Monte Carlo methods that are adapted in order to efficiently explore the particular parameter space. Examples are shown to illustrate how and what information about the different parameters can be derived from the data. This study uses simulated signals and data with noise characteristics that are assumed to be defined by the LIGO and Virgo detectors operating at their design sensitivities. Nine parameters are estimated, including those associated with the binary system, plus its location on the sky. We explain how this technique will be part of a detection pipeline for binary systems of compact objects with masses up to $20 sunmass$, including cases where the ratio of the individual masses can be extreme.