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Event details

Title: The modelling, analysis and astrophysics of extreme-mass-ratio inspirals in the LISA band

Abstract: The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, set for launch in a decade’s time, is expected to observe a myriad of novel gravitational-wave (GW) sources in the millihertz band. A key target are extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) of stellar-mass compact objects into massive black holes (MBHs). The long and complicated gravitational waveforms from EMRIs enable remarkably precise estimates of their parameters, but place stringent requirements on our models for these systems and present new data analysis challenges. In this seminar, I will first outline the FastEMRIWaveforms framework, which is capable of modelling the dynamics and waveforms of EMRI systems over long timescales in milliseconds on dedicated hardware, and explore some astrophysical results for plausible EMRI systems in the LISA context. I will then shift focus to the formidable challenge of EMRI identification, a largely unsolved problem that presents a significant hurdle in the path to observational science with these systems, and draw comparison with the search for stellar-mass binary systems in LISA, a similar but simpler challenge that has seen significant recent progress.