Optimal filtering of the LISA data

TL;DR

This paper develops an optimal filtering method for LISA gravitational-wave data, incorporating the spacecraft's motion, and presents a maximum likelihood search procedure for stellar-mass binary signals, validated through simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a closed-form analytic response model for LISA signals and a maximum likelihood-based search method tailored for stellar-mass binaries.

Findings

Analytic response forms valid across LISA's frequency band

Optimal filters and detection statistics derived for binary searches

Procedure successfully tested in numerical simulations

Abstract

The LISA time-delay-interferometry responses to a gravitational-wave signal are rewritten in a form that accounts for the motion of the LISA constellation around the Sun; the responses are given in closed analytic forms valid for any frequency in the band accessible to LISA. We then present a complete procedure, based on the principle of maximum likelihood, to search for stellar-mass binary systems in the LISA data. We define the required optimal filters, the amplitude-maximized detection statistic (analogous to the F statistic used in pulsar searches with ground-based interferometers), and discuss the false-alarm and detection probabilities. We test the procedure in numerical simulations of gravitational-wave detection.