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arXiv · 2512.23556

The new generation lunar gravitational wave detectors: sky map resolution and joint analysis

Xiaolin Zhang·Chengye Yu·Haoran Li·Sobhan Kazempour·Mingqiu Li·Sichun Sun
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Abstract

Lunar-based gravitational-wave interferometry is a fascinating endeavor, and was proposed as a promising approach to bridge the observational gap between space-borne and ground-based detectors. In this work, we adopt the Fisher-matrix method to examine the angular-resolution performance of the newly proposed Crater Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory (CIGO) on the lunar crater rim near the north pole, together with TianQin and LISA, for monochromatic sources in the 0.1-10 Hz band. We find that above 0.1 Hz, CIGO achieves better localization accuracy than the other two space-based missions and dominates the combined detector network's performance, provided that lunar noise mitigation is achieved in the 0.1-2.87 Hz frequency range. We further explore an upgraded Tetrahedron configuration, TCIGO, with a fourth station at the bottom of a crater, which forms a regular tetrahedral constellation on the lunar surface. The result shows that TCIGO yields a five-fold improvement in angular-resolution capability over CIGO and gets better sky coverage across the target frequency band.

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Xiaolin Zhang, Chengye Yu, Haoran Li, Sobhan Kazempour, Mingqiu Li, Sichun Sun. 2025-12-29. The new generation lunar gravitational wave detectors: sky map resolution and joint analysis. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44453-026-00037-w

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