The Mock LISA Data Challenge begins!

The first round of the Mock LISA Data Challenge will be presented on Friday, June 23, at the 6th International LISA Symposium

The TDI spectrum of a SMBH binary (part of Challenge 1!)

Last December, the LISA International Science Team Working Group on Data Analysis (LIST-WG1B) established a taskforce to organize several rounds of mock data challenges, with the dual purpose of fostering the development of LISA data analysis tools and capabilities, and of demonstrating the technical readiness already achieved by the gravitational-wave community in distilling a rich science payoff from the LISA data output. The challenges will involve the distribution of several datasets, encoded in a simple standard format, and containing combinations of realistic simulated LISA noise with the signals from one or more LISA gravitational-wave sources of parameters unknown to the challenge participants.

The Mock LISA Data Challenge (MLDC) Taskforce has been working since the beginning of this year to formulate challenge problems of maximum efficacy, to establish criteria for the evaluation of the analyses, to develop standard models of the LISA mission (orbit, noises) and of the LISA sources (waveforms, parameterization), to provide computing tools such as LISA response simulators, source waveform generators, and a Mock Data Challenge file format, and more generally to provide any technical support necessary to the challengers, including moderated discussion forums and a software repository. You can follow the activities of the MLDC Taskforce on the WG1B website.

The first challenge, which includes the detection of moderate numbers of galactic binaries and of supermassive black-hole binaries, will be presented by Alberto Vecchio and Michele Vallisneri (the MLDC co-chairs) at the 6th International LISA Symposium, on June 23, during the parallel session on data analysis. These presentations will include details about the formulation of the challenge, a discussion on the timeline for returning results and adjudicating the challenge, and a tutorial on using the software tools made available by the MLDC. The results of the first challenge will be presented to the broad community and discussed in a dedicated session at the 11th Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis Workshop (December 18-21, 2006, at the Albert Einstein Institute, in Golm, Germany).

The second and third sets of challenge datasets, embodying more ambitious data-analysis problems, will be released in December 2006, with target timeframes for the completion of the analyses in June and December 2007. Informal meetings and/or teleconferences will be scheduled in consultation with the participants to discuss progress, issues and preliminary/final results. The attendance to the LISA Symposium and to the GWDAWs is therefore not required to participate in the challenges, since all challenge materials and results will be available online.

Participation in the challenges is open to all interested parties, and the MLDC taskforce welcomes contributions and feedback on its formulation and support activity. Questions and comments can be sent to Michele Vallisneri and Alberto Vecchio. (If you are attending the LISA Symposium, you can also look for Michele, Alberto, or for Neil Cornish in person!)

Update: the first set of challenge files are available at the Official MLDC website; software tools are available at the LISAtools SourceForge website, and especially in the Subversion archive.