Strongly-Lensed Extreme Mass-ratio Inspirals

TL;DR

This paper explores the detection and characterization of strongly-lensed extreme mass-ratio inspirals (LEMRIs) with LISA, highlighting their potential as a new gravitational-wave source and their utility in cosmology.

Contribution

It introduces LEMRIs as a new detectable gravitational-wave source for LISA and assesses their detection rates and cosmological measurement potential.

Findings

Detection rates could reach up to 40 events in four years.

LEMRIs can be identified and characterized at redshifts above 1.

Single LEMRI observations may constrain the Hubble constant to percent-level accuracy.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate detection rates and parameter estimation of strongly-lensed extreme mass-ratio inspirals (LEMRIs) in the context of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Our results indicate that LEMRIs constitute a new gravitational-wave target signal for LISA, with detection rates ranging from zero to $\sim 40$ events over a four year-observation, and that it is possible to reveal and characterize LEMRIs at redshift $z \gtrsim 1$. We finally show that one LEMRI observation with identified host galaxy may yield percent constraints or better on the Hubble constant.