A brief survey of LISA sources and science

TL;DR

LISA will detect low-frequency gravitational waves from sources like massive black hole binaries, enabling high-precision measurements that reveal the evolution of black holes and galaxy formation in the universe.

Contribution

This survey highlights the potential of LISA to study black hole evolution and galaxy mergers through gravitational wave observations, emphasizing its unique scientific capabilities.

Findings

LISA can measure black hole masses and spins with percent-level accuracy.

Gravitational waves from massive black hole binaries can trace cosmic structure growth.

LISA's observations will provide insights into early universe astrophysical processes.

Abstract

LISA is a planned space-based gravitational-wave (GW) detector that would be sensitive to waves from low-frequency sources, in the band of roughly $(0.03 - 0.1) {\rm mHz} \lesssim f \lesssim 0.1 {\rm Hz}$. This is expected to be an extremely rich chunk of the GW spectrum -- observing these waves will provide a unique view of dynamical processes in astrophysics. Here we give a quick survey of some key LISA sources and what GWs can uniquely teach us about these sources. Particularly noteworthy science which is highlighted here is the potential for LISA to track the moderate to high redshift evolution of black hole masses and spins through the measurement of GWs generated from massive black hole binaries (which in turn form by the merger of galaxies and protogalaxies). Measurement of these binary black hole waves has the potential to determine the masses and spins of the constituent black holes with percent-level accuracy or better, providing a unique high-precision probe of an aspect of early structure growth. This article is based on the ``Astrophysics Tutorial'' talk given by the author at the Sixth International LISA Symposium.