New LISA Taskforce: Parameter Estimation

At the LIST meeting in September 2007, a new taskforce on LISA Parameter Estimation (LISA PE) was established, whose main goal is to foster the development of accurate, reliable and flexible tools and models for calculating how accurately LISA can measure astrophysical parameters for various sources. Interested scientists are invited to join.

Binary emitting gravitational waves - a case where parameter estimation is well-understood

The new task-force was founded under the auspices of Working Group 1B (Data Analysis). It is co-chaired by Curt Cutler and Alicia Sintes. Its goals are:

1. to develop reliable (vetted) codes for calculating LISA’s parameter estimation accuracy for different sources (e.g., by the Fisher matrix approach, which is accurate in the high-SNR limit, or more generally by MCMC methods),  and
   
2. to develop source population models, so the codes developed in 1) can be run in Monte Carlo fashion over a representative sampling of sources. 

The co-chairs imagine that at first the Taskforce will mainly function as a ‘cooperative’ for helping members write papers, by helping one another debug code.  Of course, a strong motivation for this work is to compare LISA’s science reach for different mission configurations, so we will coordinate with the LISA Project to arrive at a few standard noise curves of greatest interest.  It is also hoped that some point some of these codes will be made more broadly available (e.g., to the LISA Project or to the general scientific community), but the timing and implementation of this is for the Taskforce to discuss. Since the case of WD binaries already seems well in hand, we expect that the sources of primary interest for the Taskforce are massive black hole binary (MBHB) mergers and extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs); however,  the Taskforce could decide to extend its work to other sources. For MBHB mergers, there has already been substantial code development by several groups, so  the first major focus would be to help sort out differences  between groups. 

The LISA PE Taskforce is open to anyone with a strong interest in developing LISA PE codes or source population models.  We expect to start out having bi-weekly teleconferences. Interested scientists are urged to visit the Taskforce wiki and follow the instructions to participate in the first Taskforce telecon on Monday, Oct. 29 at 18:30 CET (= 10:30 PDT, 13:30 EDT, and 17:30 UTC)  or, if they cannot join that telecon, to send an email  to Curt Cutler (Curt.J.Cutler@jpl.nasa.gov) in order to be put onto the Taskforce's e-mailing list.