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arXiv · astro-ph/0105374

Mapping the gravitational wave background

Neil J. Cornish
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Abstract

The gravitational wave sky is expected to have isolated bright sources superimposed on a diffuse gravitational wave background. The background radiation has two components: a confusion limited background from unresolved astrophysical sources; and a cosmological component formed during the birth of the universe. A map of the gravitational wave background can be made by sweeping a gravitational wave detector across the sky. The detector output is a complicated convolution of the sky luminosity distribution, the detector response function and the scan pattern. Here we study the general de-convolution problem, and show how LIGO (Laser Interferometric Gravitational Observatory) and LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) can be used to detect anisotropies in the gravitational wave background.

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Neil J. Cornish. 2001-05-22. Mapping the gravitational wave background. https://doi.org/10.1088/0264-9381%2F18%2F20%2F307

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